Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 33

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Series Editor: Norman K. Denzin Recent Volumes: Volumes 1–32:

Studies in Symbolic Interaction

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION VOLUME 33

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION EDITED BY

NORMAN K. DENZIN Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA EDITOR OF BLUE RIBBON PAPER SERIES

LONNIE ATHENS Department of Criminal Justice, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA EDITOR OF COMMODITY RACISM

RICHARD KING Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA MANAGING EDITOR

MYRA WASHINGTON Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA CO-MANAGING EDITOR

DONG HAN AND YING ZHANG Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2009 Copyright r 2009 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84855-784-0 ISSN: 0163-2396 (Series)

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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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PART I: BLUE RIBBON PAPERS INTRODUCTION TO ‘BLUE RIBBON PAPERS’: INVESTIGATING THE EMPIRICAL WORLD Lonnie Athens

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THE WISDOM OF DISTRUST: REFLECTIONS ON UKRAINIAN SOCIETY AND SOCIOLOGY John M. Johnson and Andrew Melnikov

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SITUATING PUBLIC PERFORMANCES: FOLK SINGERS AND SONG INTRODUCTIONS Scott Grills

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THE MUSIC RINGTONE AS AN IDENTITY MANAGEMENT DEVICE: A RESEARCH NOTE Christopher J. Schneider

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THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME Jude Robinson

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THE STRUCTURE OF FLIRTATION: ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF INTERACTIONAL AMBIGUITY Iddo Tavory

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BECOMING A SOCIOLOGIST: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY Virginia Olesen

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PART II: COMMODITY RACISM: REPRESENTATION, RACIALIZATION, AND RESISTANCE COMMODITY RACISM NOW C. Richard King

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COMMODITY RACE AND EMOTION: THE RACIAL COMMERCIALIZATION OF HUMAN FEELING IN CORPORATE CONSUMERISM Jeffrey Santa Ana

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THE PRINCESS AND THE SUV: BRAND IMAGES OF NATIVE AMERICANS AS COMMODIFIED RACISM Debra Merskin

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YEAST: CANNIBALIZING THE ORIENT IN AMERICAN CULTURE Sheng-mei Ma

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IT’S GOTTA BE THE BODY: RACE, COMMODITY, AND SURVEILLANCE OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK ATHLETES David J. Leonard

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CONSUMING ‘‘POLYNESIA’’: VISUAL SPECTACLES OF NATIVE BODIES IN HAWAIIAN TOURISM Vernadette V. Gonzalez

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CINCO DE MAYO, INC.: REINTERPRETING LATINO CULTURE INTO A COMMERCIAL HOLIDAY Jose´ M. Alamillo

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IF SANTA WUZ BLACK: THE DOMESTICATION OF A WHITE MYTH Charles Fruehling Springwood

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UNSETTLING COMMODITY RACISM C. Richard King

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PART III: PETER M. HALL LECTURE SERIES INTRODUCTION TO DAVID ALTHEIDE’S TALK: ‘‘TERRORISM AND PROPAGANDA’’ Susan Stall

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TERRORISM AND PROPAGANDA David L. Altheide

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THERE’S OUR HITLER ENVY! ALTHEIDE’S VERSION OF FEAR IT NOW Michael A. Katovich

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PART IV: NEW INTERPRETIVE WORKS THE ESSENTIALS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM: A PAPER IN HONOR OF BERNARD N. MELTZER Gil Richard Musolf

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COMMUNICATIVE SUSTAINABILITY: A FRAMEWORK FOR PERFORMANCE ACCOUNTING Wayne D. Woodward

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THE INTER-PLAY OF POWER AND META-POWER IN THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ‘‘ENTREPRENEURIAL’’ PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS: A PROCESSUAL ORDERING PERSPECTIVE Mark W. Dirsmith, Sajay Samuel, Mark A. Covaleski and James B. Heian MYSTIFICATION OF ROCK Michael A. Katovich and Wesley Longhofer

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NARRATIVE FORM AND TEMPORALITY IN PUBLIC DISCOURSE: ROMANCE, TRAGEDY, AND AMERICA’S PRESENCE IN IRAQ Robert L. Young

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FOUR ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL PARADOXES: REFLECTIONS ON THE WORK OF KENNETH LIBERMAN Scott R. Harris

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LEAVING BLACK ROCK CITY John F. Sherry, Jr.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Jose´ M. Alamillo

Chicana/o Studies, California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA, USA

David L. Altheide

School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Lonnie Athens

Department of Criminal Justice, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA

Mark A. Covaleski

School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Mark W. Dirsmith

Smeal College of Business and the social thought program, Penn State University. University Park, PA, USA

Vernadette V. Gonzalez

American Studies Department, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

Scott Grills

Department of Sociology, Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada

Scott R. Harris

Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

James B. Heian

Division of Social Sciences and Management, Utica College of Syracuse University, Utica, NY, USA

John M. Johnson

School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

C. Richard King

Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA ix

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Michael A. Katovich

College of Liberal Arts, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, USA

David J. Leonard

Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

Wesley Longhofer

Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

Sheng-mei Ma

Department of English, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Andrew Melnikov

Department of Sociology, Eastukrainian National University, Legansk, Ukraine

Debra Merskin

School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Gil Richard Musolf

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI, USA

Virginia Olesen

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Jude Robinson

The Health and Community Care Research Unit (HaCCRU), University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Sajay Samuel

Smeal College of Business, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

Jeffrey Santa Ana

Department of English, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

Christopher J. Schneider

Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Kelowna, BC, Canada

John F. Sherry, Jr.

Department of Marketing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

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List of Contributors

Charles Fruehling Springwood

Sociology and Anthropology Department, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL, USA

Susan Stall

Sociology Department, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL, USA

Iddo Tavory

Department of Sociology, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Wayne D. Woodward

Department of Language, Culture, and Communication, University of MichiganDearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA

Robert L. Young

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

PART I BLUE RIBBON PAPERS

INTRODUCTION TO ‘BLUE RIBBON PAPERS’: INVESTIGATING THE EMPIRICAL WORLD Lonnie Athens I am pleased to introduce the second issue in Studies in Symbolic Interaction’s ‘‘Blue Ribbon Paper’’ series. In contrast to the chapters in the first issue that focused exclusively on theoretical matters, the chapters in this one are focused on empirical problems. In John Johnson’s and Andrew Melnikov’s provocative article, ‘‘The Wisdom of Distrust: Reflections on Ukrainian Society and Sociology,’’ they examine the results of a nation-wide poll that shows among other things that Ukrainian citizenry paradoxically displays little faith in any of the branches of their democratically elected government. On the one hand, this finding is paradoxical because democracy is a relatively new experience for present day Ukrainians. Since their country had been for years a puppet state of the former Soviet Union, one would think that they now would be elated by the opportunity to elect their leaders. On the other hand, the founding fathers of our nation also displayed considerable distrust in government, including democratically elected ones, such as our own. In fact, their distrust was so great that it led them to build into our constitution an intricate system of checks and balances of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government. Although conventional psychological wisdom is that distrust of others is a sign of paranoia, Johnson and Melinkov conclude that

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 3–7 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033002

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being wary of governmental institutions and politicians may be a healthy state of affairs for a country’s citizens. The authors of our next three chapters all examine different aspects of popular culture. In ‘‘Situating Public Performances: Folk Singers and Song Introductions,’’ Scott Grills analyzes the introductions that folk singers often provide to their songs during live performances. He collected his data primarily from conducting informal interviews with folk singers and participant observing their performances over a four year period at various folk festivals held across North America. Grills, an accomplished saxophonist, who has played in several blues bands, found that introducing a song serves a purpose other than merely killing time between tunes. According to him, ‘‘song introductions provide additional information to the audience that would be otherwise unavailable, provide the artists with an opportunity to influence audience interpretations, allow for legitimizing strategies to be utilized and, importantly, allow artists an opportunity to invoke disclaimers, accounts, and justifications’’ for their performances. Thus, they afford singers the opportunity to ‘‘situate’’ a song and, thereby, help the audience to place the right accent on the meaning of their performance. As Grills points out, prefacing a public performance is not a practice unique to folk singers or even singers, but is one that writers, filmmakers, magicians, musicians, comedians, and others also use to help insure that an audience will interpret their work in the proper light. Hopefully, Grills will push his enlightening analysis even further by identifying the properties of introductions that increase the likelihood of their success in making an audience respond positively to an artist’s performance. In ‘‘The Music Ringtone as an Identity Management Device: A Research Note,’’ Christopher Schneider provides another study of popular culture. To collect data on the tunes that American youth select for the ringtones on their mobile phones, he drew on his participation observation at a secondary school and information gleaned from census data and trade association publications, such as Billboard’s ‘‘Hot Ringtones Chart.’’ To provide a framework for understanding his findings, he drew on the work of Erving Goffman. He found that for, at least, members of the American youth culture, the tunes that they select for their mobile phones’ ringtones serve as what Goffman calls a ‘‘tie-sign,’’ or critical indicator of who they are and what they are about. According to Schneider, however, this can often create potential problems of what Goffman like to refer to as ‘‘information control.’’ The ringtones on our cell phones may reveal personal information about us that we may sometimes prefer to keep hidden from others.

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Although we can switch the ringtones on our mobile phones ‘‘on’’ and ‘‘off,’’ this may not always be a practical option. Thus, depending on the audience, a ringtone can potentially reveal harmful or helpful information about our identities, and thereby, operate as either a positive or negative ‘‘tie-sign.’’ In ‘‘There’s No Place Like Home,’’ Jude Robinson examines still another important aspect of popular culture – the documentary film. She turns her perceptive eye on director Jeff Togman’s award-winning documentary, ‘‘Home,’’ which covers 10 weeks in the life of a Black middle-aged mother and her six children. The mother is confronted with the problem of whether to move her family from their present residence in an urban slum to a new residence in a ‘‘better neighborhood.’’ At first glance, the answer to this problem seems to be a no-brainer. As Robinson sees it, however, ‘‘Home’’ raises this problem to the level of a serious existential dilemma for this mother. On the one hand, she has the opportunity to move her family into bigger and better housing in a swankier part of town. On the other hand, she is reluctant to take advantage of this seemingly ‘‘golden opportunity’’ that has been handed to her on a silver platter. According to Robinson, the answer to this paradox is ‘‘Home is where your heart is.’’ As she explains, this mother’s ‘‘heart was never into moving away to a new house and neighborhood where she would be a nobody by leaving her old house and neighborhood where she was a somebody.’’ In her present neighborhood, this single-parent mother with six dependent children was a ‘‘somebody’’ because she was doing the seemingly impossible – raising good kids in a bad neighborhood. In a good neighborhood where the odds would be stacked much more heavily in her favor, however, she knew that she would no longer be considered anybody special because she would be doing only what every mother living in that neighborhood was expected to do. In Iddo Tavory’s ‘‘The Structure of Flirtation: On the Construction of Interactional Ambiguity,’’ the topic of analysis switches from popular culture to everyday life. During the course of a 14 month study, he observed over 65 incidents of flirtation, most of which took place in cafes and bars. Tavory places flirtation inside a larger class of interaction, which he labels ‘‘suspended interactions.’’ According to him, suspended interaction occurs when the interactants intentionally hold the outcome of their interaction in abeyance. In the specific case of flirtation, a possible sexual advance is made, but its ultimate meaning is purposefully left ambiguous. He argues that flirting can be advantageously viewed as social interaction that unfolds over three stages. During initial stage, the interaction between the actors has a nonsexual tenor. During the middle stage, however, an advance is made that

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changes the tenor of the interaction to a possible sexual one. During the final stage, the sexual advance that was made during the middle stage is further clarified making clear that it was a sexual advance. According to Tavory, the flirtation ceases as soon as the meaning of an ambiguous sexual advance becomes determinate. Thus, for him, flirtation is limited to the social interaction that takes place during this middle stage which lies somewhere ‘‘between and betwixt’’ making normal, everyday chit chat and an explicit sexual proposition. Tavory deserves credit for opening up for empirical investigation a class of interaction that Simmel and others have long speculated about, but few have subjected to direct empirical examination. In the last chapter, ‘‘Becoming a Sociologist: One Women’s Journey,’’ Virginia Olesen describes the circuitous route that she followed in becoming a sociologist. She organizes her narrative around what her former mentor and later colleague, Anslem Strauss, called ‘‘turning points.’’ Although all the turning points that resulted in her becoming a distinguished medical sociologist cannot be mentioned here, I will highlight some of the key ones to give the flavor of her journey. Although an undergraduate at the University of Nevada at Reno, Olesen dreamed of becoming a journalist. After earning bachelor’s degrees in both history and english at Nevada, she landed a job at local newspaper on Mare Island, California where she worked first as a cub reporter and later as the editor. Despite her obvious success at this newspaper, she became bored with working on local news and personal interest stories. An early important turning point in her career came when she applied for a fellowship to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago. Though studying communication at Chicago, she met several outstanding sociologists, including Anselm Strauss, on whom she apparently made a good impression. After finishing up her work for her master’s degree in communication at Chicago, she decided to switch to Stanford University for her doctorate degree. However, she quickly became disenchanted with the intellectual content of its communication’s programme. The next major turning point in her career occurred when she decided to transfer from the university’s department of communication into its department of sociology which she found much more intellectually satisfying. After earning her Ph.D. in sociology at Stanford, she found herself once again in the job market. Another important turning point came in her career when Anselm Strauss and Fred Davis offered her a soft money position to work on a research project on nursing careers at the University of California at San Francisco. With a great deal of hard work, tenacity, and a bit of good luck, she worked

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her way up from a soft money research position to a tenured, full professor in its College of Nursing’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences that Anselm Strauss help create and later headed up. I think that Olesen’s chapter should be required reading for all students in the social sciences considering a career in academics. Among other things, it shows how she deftly managed her professional life during the difficult years before affirmative action had been instituted. It also demonstrates more generally that academic careers do not always follow a straight line, that personal contacts can play a big role in your success or failure, and that you must be ready to seize opportunities when they knock at your door.

THE WISDOM OF DISTRUST: REFLECTIONS ON UKRAINIAN SOCIETY AND SOCIOLOGY$ John M. Johnson and Andrew Melnikov THE WISDOM OF DISTRUST Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, following over 7 decades of soviet domination, and about 300 years of Russian domination. Democracy and stable institutional development have proven problematic for Ukraine since 1991, arguably more so than any of the other Eastern European countries. Unlike the increasing economic development in the other countries, for example, per capita GNP in Ukraine has decreased by approximately 50% in the last decade. President Viktor Yushchenko’s ‘‘Orange Revolution’’ has promised certain westernized economic reforms, but political opposition has forced a new election scheduled for September 30, 2007. During the summer of 1993, the director of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences commissioned a sociological survey to monitor the current social situation in Ukrainian society, its perspectives, structures and institutions, economics, politics, and national and cultural features reflected in Ukrainian public opinion. Sociologists Natalia Panina and Evgeniy Golovakha were asked to head the survey team. In 2001, they produced a volume

$

Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, New York City, August, 2007.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 9–18 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033003

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Tendancies in the Development of Ukrainian Society 1994–2001: Sociological Indicators, which reports the results of the first seven years of this exhaustive survey in Ukraine (Panina & Golovakha, 2001). Their report includes over 170 tables to summarize the polling data on citizen evaluations of the economic situation and attitudes toward economic reforms, standards of living and living conditions, consumption orientations, working activities, employment, and satisfaction with jobs. Also included are attitudes toward political orientations, social and political activity, toward state and institutional power structures, religion and beliefs, effectiveness of the legal system, the state of health, environment, and attitudes toward medical service. Everyday life, leisure, cultural activities, and interpersonal relations and psychological conditions are additionally included, as are education, mass media, knowledge, and attitudes about national identity and migration. Even the most casual reader is impressed with the exhaustive nature of the survey and the issues addressed. A close reading of the report produces an unmistakable emphasis on the high level of distrust expressed about virtually all aspects of life in Ukraine. The authors refer to these ‘‘conditions of mass distrust of the state (and) civil society institutions’’ (p. 123), and further observe, ‘‘You can only look at the population’s trust in main social institutions and power structures and see that in the average citizen’s field of trust, there are only the citizen himself, the family, and God.’’ (p. 122) To further dramatize this, one table showing the comparative trust scores across realms of Ukrainian life (Table B2, p. 53) reveals that the trust scores for astrologers are higher than those of all official state institutions, specifically the Supreme Court, the Parliament, the Presidency, the militia, the political parties, the traditional trade unions, the private entrepreneurs, and the new trade unions. The high level of distrust is so overwhelmingly pervasive throughout the report that, when combined with the very high No Response levels, a serious reader develops a healthy skepticism about whether to even believe any of this; after all, with such high levels of distrust expressed about all aspects of the social order, by what warrant would one accept these responses and trust them? This is a very serious question, and one we cannot here answer. Even if we were to hypothetically speculate that Ukrainian citizens had a higher level of trust for the pollsters than they expressed for any other official, state, or civil institution (which would put it at the lower middle level on the scale), this would involve such a high rate of error that it would compromise the survey as a whole. It remains highly plausible that such polling results from Ukraine are severely and fatally flawed. If Ukrainian polling respondents responded to the polling situation with no more trust than they expressed about all other state and civil institutions in

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Ukraine, then why did they bother to respond at all? Another good question we think. Scholars trained in symbolic interaction would likely observe that the polling situation itself should be studied as an instance of a complicated social interaction, commonly between two or more persons who are previously unknown to each other in any intimate manner, and thus a context where the emergent meanings of specific statements or questionnaire items are negotiated in a face-to-face situation. This is the message to be taken from Aaron Cicourel’s (1964) book Method and Measurement in Sociology, where he asserts that interview or questionnaire results cannot be taken as unproblematic ‘‘data,’’ but should be examined to see how it is that pollsters and relative strangers manage and negotiate meanings during a face-to-face encounter. Those familiar with the writings of Herbert Blumer would additionally emphasize that meanings in face-to-face encounters have an emergent quality to them, that they flow out of a social process (the interview or questionnaire encounter) which cannot be assumed as a ‘‘given’’ in the research (Blumer, 1969). Without really knowing these aspects about the Ukrainian questionnaire interviews, one plausible speculation is that some of them may have interpreted the polling questions as an occasion to ‘‘vote’’ for a response, perhaps intending to ‘‘send a message’’ to those in power, concerning their elected options, independently of how they ‘‘really felt’’ about the question, or what they ‘‘really thought’’ about it. Whatever the answer is to this, it is clear that Ukrainian scientists and scholars take this high level of distrust as a serious problem for the immediate national future of Ukraine, as expressed by many of the selected essays edited by Golovakha, Panina, and Vorona for the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Golovakha, Panina, & Vorona, 2000). The survey polling results reported by Panina and Golovakha in Tendancies in the Development of Ukrainian Society 1994–2001 provide the animus for this chapter, and our reflections on the nature and meaning of trust, for individuals and for society. We briefly address the issue of how trust arises in the life of most individuals, what it means for their lives, and how disruptions or betrayals of trust are dealt handled. We conclude these reflections with an assertion of our position that, for Ukrainian society the ‘‘problem’’ of distrusting citizens should be recast or reformulated as an issue of social justice.

THE NATURE OF TRUST For the overwhelming number of human beings, arguably in the range 98–99%, a condition of trust is present in their lives from the moment of

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birth, even before that (during pregnancy) in most cases. Mother–infant bonding is a profound, primordial, and foundational experience for most individuals. The caring love shown by mothers toward infants is idealized and symbolized in all known cultures. In science, the world-renowned researches of Barry Brazelton (Brazelton, 1963, 1980; Brazelton, Kowslowski, & Main, 1974; Brazelton, Troncik, Adamson, Als, & Wise, 1975) have shown the profound significance of mother–infant bonding, and the well-known threevolume work by Harvard’s John Bolby (1971–1979) has shown the significance of this bonding for the larger issues of human attachment. The human animal has the longest period of dependency, when compared to other primates, so the first months of life are very important for what follows in an individual’s life. In his famous work The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm (1974) argues that early bonding or attachment is very important in terms of subsequent development, especially whether or not the child develops deep feelings of security or insecurity. Thelma Rowell (1972, p. 137) has additionally asserted this importance for other primates: Many primates are captured as infants and hand-reared as pets, then transferred to zoos when they get older. Attempts to use such animals as breeding stock have a very low rate of success: typically these ex-pets show little or no mating behavior, and the females do not care for their infants, which are then hand-reared, thus creating the breeding problems of the next generation. The histories of these zoo animals are of course varied, and the fact that some of them do breed suggests that one might be dealing with quite short critical periods during which social experience is necessary. This was investigated in rhesus infants. Isolated for the first three months produced no permanent effects, if the infants were then placed in a group, but isolated for the whole of the first year destroyed all social ability. The period between three and nine months seemed to be critical for establishing normal social behavior, although the communicative gestures have nearly all appeared in the first three months.

The significance of mother–infant bonding and these early attachment experiences can be dramatically seen in cases where the bonding is not present, or those few cases where the mother has rejected the newborn. Again, the researches of T. Barry Brazelton provide many examples of this. Other widely known examples include the many Romanian babies who were institutionalized shortly after birth during the 1970s and 1980s, during the repressive regime of Nicolae Ceausescu: even when many of these babies were later adopted by loving families, many proved incapable of transcending these early months or years of social isolation. Other wellknown examples of maternal rejection are some of the notorious mass,

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spree, or serial killers, such as Theodore Bundy, who killed 33 women (abandoned by his mother Elizabeth Cowell), Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed in killing hundreds of women across the United States (savagely beaten by his mother, who became his first murder victim), David Berkowitz, the infamous ‘‘Son of Sam’’ shooter who killed 11 people in New York during the summer of 1976 (abandoned by his mother at birth, and who rejected him later after he had located her in his late teenage years), Charles Starkweather, who killed 7 people during an 11 day spree in Nebraska (abused by his mother), and so on (see Hickey, 2005). Maternal mortality has been high historically, but in many of these cases there are maternal surrogates who step in and take the place of the mother, most commonly aunts, sisters, or grandmothers, and if possible even fathers. Infant bonding and attachment does occur with the father and others in the family, such as aunts or grandmothers, and in such cases the bonding attachments may have a cumulative effect, thus helping to produce feelings of security and being loved. Many developmental psychologists have been influenced by the seminal work of E. H. Erikson (1963) who said that children developed a sense of ‘‘basic trust’’ with their environment and its caretakers, or a sense of ‘‘basic distrust.’’ Basic trust means that the child has a generalized expectation that the external environment they encounter is basically good, and that good and positive things will most likely happen; basic distrust is the opposite. This is not to say that children do not encounter bad or untoward or inconsistent things. They do. Life is difficult and problematic. But the important point is that a child or person who has developed a sense of basic trust will process these untoward events in a different manner than the child or person who is distrustful. The distrustful child will begin to develop psychologically defensive expectations and adaptations to these untoward events or actions. Successful mother–infant bonding, especially when combined with other significant bondings and attachments within the home (father, siblings, grandparents, and aunts), lays an important foundation for later developmental success. This is not a simple, mono-causal, linear process, but one with many disjunctions and perturbations. Young children encounter conflicts and tensions within any family, and all adolescents encounter conflicts and tensions with other children and adolescents. Successful bonding tends to produce other successes in these problematic human relations, and bonding failures tend to produce other failures. Successful bonding within the home is associated with success in developing early friendships and alliances, and these are often important relationships to have when encountering life’s difficulties.

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EARLY BETRAYALS OF TRUST Although forms of trusting relations are found early in most lives, early disruptions, conflicts, and betrayals of trust are found too. These may come from within the family, with conflicts between siblings being common, or they may come from outside the family, with adolescent conflicts being common. Such conflicts or betrayals may be serious and consequential, or less serious and mild in their consequences. For young children, they may ‘‘patch up’’ or repair such disruptions, and continue their friendships. For older children who experience a ‘‘betrayal,’’ the more common pattern is to transfer one’s loyalties to a different friend, or to build a new friendship. Serious betrayals of trust possess the potential to be emotionally overwhelming, at any age. For more serious betrayals, an individual may respond with violence, revenge, or perhaps more commonly, to become less trusting. Childhood sexual abuse and childhood physical abuse can be mild or severe, but when it is in the severe range, the consequences may be profound. These are forms of betraying trust which may affect the individual for the rest of their life, in the more serious cases. During the past four decades there has developed a vast scientific literature on these topics (for a summary, see Barnett, Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2005). The important research of Heinz Kohut (1971, 1977) shows that infant and early childhood aggression is extremely common, and furthermore it arises as a reaction to significant others not providing crucial developmental needs. His term for this is ‘‘empathic optimal frustration,’’ which refers to the social process during which infants learn that it is not possible to have all of their needs met all of the time. This does not result because of some failure or neglect on the part of the caretakers, but because they cannot be there every minute of the time. Infants respond to the ‘‘optimal frustration’’ period with assertiveness or healthy aggression, and from this eventually learn that life is not perfect, and that the world does not exist for the sole purpose of providing for their needs. Infants also learn about their own healthy aggression from this process, and how to use it in interaction with significant others. In situation where the unmet needs are consistently and continually unmet, however, or in situations where young children are subjected to continual abuse or abandonment, then the healthy assertiveness can break down into hostile assertiveness. In the researches of Lonnie Athens (1992), for example, in severely abusive situations where the young child is ‘‘psychologically broken,’’ then the early (benign) assertiveness can become transformed into defensive or destructive rage, hostility, and

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violence toward others. In the most extreme cases of continual abuse or abandonment, the end result can be an individual who is paranoid, or even in the case of the Athens research a ‘‘dangerous, violent criminal.’’ The condition of trust is not intrinsic to the human being. Trust is learned and is learned in a slow, gradual, developmental process, a social process which includes conflicts, tensions, problems, even betrayals. Individuals learn from the betrayals of trust, just as they learn from the establishment and development of trust. As the individual grows and develops, there is an accumulation of trusting and distrusting experiences. These experiences are socially structured and stratified; those who grow up in large urban metropolises do not grow up trusting in the same manner as more isolated rural peasants.

DISTRUST IS NOT THE PROBLEM: JUSTICE IS THE PROBLEM Trust is learned. It is learned during the course of a developmental social process, often taking a considerable period of time. Distrust is also learned. Though an individual may learn to distrust over a longer period of time, it is more common for distrust to result from violations or betrayals of trust. If the citizens of Ukraine express such a high level of distrust toward their national political, state, and civil institutions, it is not because something is ‘‘wrong’’ with them as individuals, or as citizens. The distrust is a result of their lived experience of betrayal, that is, the betrayal of the political promises and expectations made by political or party leaders. In a later publication by Ukrainian sociologists and pollsters Evgeniy Golovakha and Natalia Panina (2000, p. 118), they seem to recognize this when they say: This conflict between democratic ideals and realities has a rational foundation. It influences the formation of negative evaluations regarding both the rate and depth of democratic transformation. The current duality in attitudes about democracy reflects this ambivalence in social and individual consciousness. Social-psychological ambivalence divides the society into supporters and opponents surrounding the myth of equality and security for people living under socialist state patronage. Proof of individual ambivalence is evident in perspectives of Ukrainian political and economic development. These may be mutually exclusive, for instance, support for market economy and price controls or approval of a multi-party system and distrust of all parties.

Spreading fear and distrust are ancient political tactics, and their use has a long history in both totalitarian and democratic societies. In totalitarian political orders spreading fear and distrust can be used to justify more

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central or totalitarian powers, commonly made with the promise of greater social order. But spreading fear and distrust are used in democratic societies too. The United States has a long history of ‘‘moral crusades’’ which were animated by fears of different racial or immigrant groups, drugs, alcohol, marihuana, sexual predators, and recently terrorists (see Altheide, 2006). Spreading fear in society can be a tactic to create social distance and isolation between groups, a ‘‘divide and conquer’’ strategy long favored by Western imperialists. In commenting on the death of the Russian brief experiment with democracy, former journalist (assassinated in 2005) Anna Politkovskaya (2007, p. 255) observed: Our society isn’t a society any more. It is a collection of windowless, isolated concrete cells. In one of these are the Heroes, in another are the politicians of Yabloko, in a third there is Zyuganov, the leader of the Communists, and so on. There are thousands who together might add up to be the Russian people, but the walls of our cells are impermeable. If somebody is suffering, he is upset that nobody seems concerned. If, in other cells at the same time, anybody is in fact thinking about him, it leads to no action, and they only really remember he had a problem when their own situation becomes completely intolerable y The authorities do everything they can to make the cells even more impermeable, sowing dissent, inciting some against others, dividing and ruling. And the people fall for it. That is the real problem. That is why revolution in Russia, when it comes, is always so extreme. The barrier between the cells collapses only when the negative emotions within them are ungovernable.

The founding fathers of the United States were very distrustful indeed. The leaders were highly educated men who had received a classic education. They felt that human history had been the history of tyranny, for the most part, and they elected to institutionalize their distrust in how the American constitution and government were formed. The U.S. Constitution institutionalizes distrust. They distrusted all branches of government, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, and assumed that, if any or all of these had their way, the result would be the abuse and corruption of power. They created ‘‘checks and balances’’ of power, so that each branch of government was constrained in their powers because of the powers institutionalized for the other two branches. In the political oratory of politicians it is common to hear rhetorical flourishes about how Americans love liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or whatever, but in fact the foundational legal documents of the United States institutionalize distrust. Distrust is a distinct value for one who is interested in political and social justice. It is important to distrust the lofty proclamations of politicians and other institutional leaders, to cut beneath the political rhetoric to discover who is doing what to whom, and where the trails of money and profits lead.

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The checks-and-balances of the U.S. Constitution seem to have worked reasonably well for approximately 200 years, but the recent emergence of the Imperial Presidency and the subjugation of the legislative and judicial branches to executive power reminds us again of the wisdom of the founding fathers, that political tyranny has been the dominant theme of history, and that any and all political forms may transform into something entirely different over time. The meaningful institution of democracy always occurs in an historical and cultural context. It emerges and develops over time. It is unclear if the massive distrust of Ukrainian citizens will be transformed by progressive political action and social change, efforts to make the political decisionmaking processes open and transparent to all parties, efforts to create procedural justice and an independent judiciary, efforts to expand social justice to a broader spectrum of groups, interests, and organizations. But until large numbers are certain of such an accomplishment of social justice, it is wise to be distrustful of the political rhetoric and vacuous promises of politicians.

REFERENCES Altheide, D. L. (2006). Terrorism and the politics of fear. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press. Athens, L. (1992). The creation of dangerous, violent criminals. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Barnett, O., Miller-Perrin, C., & Perrin, R. (2005). Family violence across the life span (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bolby, J. (1971–1979). Attachment and Loss, 3 volumes. New York: Basic Books. Brazelton, T. B. (1963). The early mother-infant adjustment. Pediatrics, 32, 931–938. Brazelton, T. B. (1980). Behavioral competence of the newborn infant. In: P. Taylor (Ed.), Parent-infant relationships. New York: Grune & Stratton. Brazelton, T. B., Kowslowski, B., & Main, M. (1974). The origins of reciprocity: The early mother-infant interaction. In: M. Lewis & L. Rosenbaum (Eds), The effect of the infant on its caregiver. New York: Wiley. Brazelton, T. B., Troncik, E., Adamson, L., Als, W., & Wise, W. (1975). Early mother-infant reciprocity. In: M. A. Hofer (Ed.), Parent-infant interaction. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Cicourel, A. (1964). Method and measurement in sociology. New York: Free Press. Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: Norton. Fromm, E. (1974). The art of loving. New York: Simon & Schuster. Golovakha, E., & Panina, N. (2000). The development of democratic political identity in the contemporary ukrainian political culture. In: E. Golovakha, N. Panina & V. Vorona (Eds), Sociology in Ukraine: Selected works published during the 90th (pp. 117–126). Kiev: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

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Golovakha, E., Panina, N., & Vorona, V. (Eds). (2000). Sociology in Ukraine: Selected works published during the 90th. Kiev: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Hickey, E. (2005). Serial murderers and their victims (4th ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publication Co. Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. New York: International Universities Press. Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self. New York: International Universities Press. Panina, N. V., & Golovakha, E. I. (2001). Tendancies in the development of Ukrainian society 1994–2001: Sociological indicators. Kiev: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Politkovskaya, A. (2007). A Russian diary. London: Random House. Rowell, T. (1972). The social behavior of monkeys. Baltimore, MD: Penguin.

SITUATING PUBLIC PERFORMANCES: FOLK SINGERS AND SONG INTRODUCTIONS$ Scott Grills ABSTRACT This chapter pays particular attention to the place of song introductions as an integral feature of public performance. Locating this analysis within the subculture of contemporary folk music, I demonstrate how song introductions can accomplish six important things: (1) provide an interpretive frame for understanding a performance, (2) cast performances in emotive terms, (3) situate performances in the larger context of marketing and sales, (4) contribute to moral entrepreneurial agendas, (5) align the performer’s actions, and (6) offer a venue for making disclaimers. By demonstrating how performers accomplish these things, I locate song introductions within the larger context of situating public performances more generally.

$

Chapter originally presented at the Couch-Stone Symposium, Champagne-Urbana, May 4–5, 2007.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 19–34 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033004

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At the risk of stating the obvious, there is much more to the performance of folk music, than is to be found within musicianship alone. Technical competency is, in and of itself, inadequate for understanding an audience’s reaction to a musical performance (Becker, 1973). In this chapter, I encourage the reader to attend to the performance aspects of onstage narrative utilized by contemporary folk musicians. My purpose in this chapter is to articulate the interactional strategies used by folk musicians to locate and otherwise situate their public performance and their place within this diverse subculture.1 In this context, I am particularly interested in: the development of interpretive frames, offering claims to legitimacy and the contextualization of repertoire. First a bit of a perilous exercise – what do I mean by ‘‘contemporary folk musicians?’’ The contemporary part is straight forward enough; I am limiting my analysis to people who are writing and performing today. That is, the reader would, in Schutz’ (1962) terms, have the theoretical possibility to be co-present with the artist. I, therefore, am rather deliberately excluding an analysis of archival footage, or the wonderful Smithsonian collections. A related and important point is that my analysis is limited to artists whose languages include English. My ability to chat with artists in languages other than English is too weak to be helpful. Happily, many international artists are more linguistically competent than I, and are able to accommodate my shortcomings. But, what do I mean by ‘‘folk music?’’ Theodor Adorno (1974, p. 204) offers that ‘‘everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination.’’ Although folk music has often been associated with protest, conflict, and various other manifestations of unrest (Dunaway, 1987; Rodnitzky, 1976), I am more inclined to assert, in a Blumerian fashion, that the definition of ‘‘folk music’’ is not to be found in the object itself or in an attribution of a rhetoric of domination.2 I would suggest that the most sociologically appropriate means of understanding ‘‘folk music’’ as a meaningful distinction from other musical forms is to locate the distinction within the subculture itself. What forms of music do members accept as ‘‘folk music?’’ What is played on folk radio stations’ play lists, what music is included as a part of folk festival lineups, what varieties of artists do record labels that self identify as ‘‘folk oriented’’ sign and support, and where are the debates and tensions located that result in the differentiation between subcultural membership and those that are excluded? Artists whose work is represented in this chapter include traditional acoustic singer-songwriters, vocalists, blues performers, Celtic artists, world music specialists, bluegrass artists, gospel performers, and a range of instrumentalists (e.g. fiddle

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players, percussionists, guitarists, dobro players, and harmonica/harp players). For the purposes of this chapter I am limiting my discussion to the perspectives and work of professional performing musicians – those who make a living, at least in part, in the music business. This chapter is based on an extended ethnographic research project that has involved observation, participant observation, and informal interview. Participant roles have included the following: audience member (at numerous venues and festivals in England, Canada, and the United States), conference delegate (at national and regional meetings for the folk industry), folk festival volunteer, folk festival board member and president, and saxophonist with several working blues bands. The time period represented by these various roles spans more than 20 years, however the data represented in this chapter has been collected over the past 4 years.

SITUATING PERFORMANCE: INTRODUCING THE TUNES Writing about music is, it has been suggested, like dancing for architecture.3 This is a rather glib comment that alludes to a fundamental reality of the work we are engaged in as a part of the creation of text. We are necessarily engaged in a derivative act. As Henri Bergson (1965) has wisely taught, the dissection of that which exists in time (in duration, in process) makes the subject of which we write less than it is. Writing about a meal is necessarily distinct from, and if satisfying at all, much different than the eating of the meal itself. In the discussion that follows I quite deliberately am not writing about music per se, but I wish to highlight the strategies used by artists to situate their public performances. Though sociologists have long understood the interactional importance of impression management and the accompanying rhetorical and interpersonal advantages of accounts, justifications, neutralizations, disclaimers and the like, we have been relatively inattentive to a close examination of these (and related) activities as a feature of public performance (Goffman, 1959). Therefore, while this discussion may be of particular interest to those wishing to attend to the subcultural richness that is a feature of the community context that marks folk music, I would encourage readers to also focus on the more generic themes that are included here. The work of introducing songs shares much with other attempts to situate public performance more generally. For example, the attempts of

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motion picture award winners to situate their acceptance speeches, the disclaimers used by academics as they begin conference presentations, the opening and closing presentations made by trial lawyers to juries, and the patter constructed by stage magicians are all illustrative of the audienceattentive work that may be undertaken to frame, locate and situate public performance. Therefore, this chapter makes a contribution not only to understand more about the social world of folk singers and their audiences, but also contributes to our understanding of the social process of situating public performances more generically. A word of caution, however, I would discourage readers from interpreting this work as somehow reflective of the strategies used by folk performers in all instances. Indeed, a number of artists do relatively little to introduce their performance and in fact may speak to audiences very little, if at all, beyond perfunctory comments such as ‘‘It is good to be in Baltimore’’ or ‘‘Thank you’’ following applause. As one artist articulated, I am not really a big fan of long introductions and a lot of talking. People didn’t come to hear me talk; they came to hear me sing. So that is what I do. As a singer-songwriter I feel that if you can’t understand what I mean from the song, then I haven’t done a very good job of writing it. And then there is, well, if the song is meant to be a bit ambiguous then me telling everyone what I was thinking about when I wrote it ruins the whole thing. I don’t mind people thinking I have had a bit of a wild life, when really I stole the plot of the song from a movie I was watching in my hotel room. (Female, Singersongwriter, Canadian)

However, artists have available to them the song introduction as an interactional resource, and it is to the strategies and processes associated with the situation of performance to which I now turn my attention.

INTRODUCTIONS AS PERFORMANCE It is important that song introductions be framed as audience attentive activity and as a part of the extended performance that the artist is undertaking.4 Although artists may differ greatly on the extent to which they attend more fully and deliberately to the introduction as a developed and coordinated activity, introductions are nevertheless a part of the overall performance. They very much can set a tone for a performance and may establish something of a statement of a relationship between the artist, the venue and the audience. Song introductions (or related on-stage discourse) provide additional information to the audience that would otherwise be unavailable, provide the artist with an opportunity to influence audience

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interpretations, allow for legitimating strategies to be utilized and, importantly, allow artists an opportunity to invoke disclaimers, accounts, and justifications to situate the performance at hand. Therefore, as a potentially integral part of performance, and of successful performance, artists may devote considerable backstage effort to develop, modify, and craft song introductions to effectively manage audience interpretations of the setting. One of the most important things for me is to try and use the introduction to let the audience believe that they are getting something special tonight – a little glimpse into the world of songwriting and musicianship that is not normally shared. I do this bit on learning how to play guitar and how I learned to play it. I’ve had people come up to me after a show and say it was their favorite part of the show and thank me for it. They sometimes make it clear that they thought they were getting something special, but they don’t know that I’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow night. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Producer, Canadian) The master has to be Arlo Guthrie. He can turn Alice’s Restaurant, which is over eighteen minutes long to begin with, into a forty-minute live show. The introduction, if you want to call it that, is woven right into the song as he tells the story of the song, which is in itself a story song. He really is amazing; it is as much a part of his thing as anything else is. (Male, Festival attendee, Canadian)

PROVIDING AN INTERPRETIVE FRAME As works of art, folk songs may share an element of ambiguity much like other artistic human accomplishments. The meaning of the lyrics is necessarily open to interpretation, reinterpretation and debate. Where artists achieve some level of popular recognition, the music press may pay considerable attention to the alleged ‘‘real’’ meaning of a song or song segment.5 In exceptional circumstances, the quest for the ‘‘really real’’ obscured by the lyrics can overshadow the song itself. Folk-pop artist Carly Simon’s 1973 recording You’re So Vain has produced a more than 30-year long conversation about who the male reference is in the text. Simon has never publicly identified who she is writing about, or if it is in fact a single person. As she said in a VH1 interview, People have been questioning for a long time, who it’s about-I mean, who I wrote the song about. It always strikes me as funny. That people would be THAT into what I was thinking about, that’s the greatest ego trip anybody could have y that they would be THAT interested in what you were thinking about when you wrote a song. And for that very reason, of course, I can never give it away. (Carly Simon, 1990, emphasis in the original)

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Simon’s song is, in part, about a secret, and as Simmel (1950) has wisely taught, the power of the secret is lost in the telling. A part of the appeal of You’re So Vain is that in verse Simon is publicly challenging the likes of Warren Beatty, Kris Kristofferson, Mick Jagger, and Cat Stevens. The uncertainty of You’re So Vain is very much a part of the appeal of the secret that the listener participates in, but not fully so. The song is the interactional equivalent of the secret known and not revealed. The meaning of the lyrics is not in dispute, only the individual to which they may refer. Therefore, while artists may have an interest in preserving the unknown in the song and actively participating in the creation of doubt and uncertainty (Grills & Grills, 2008), others may quite explicitly attend to audience perspectives and problems of meaning. Some such work may quite directly transform a more ambiguous song chorus into something more fully situated, by providing audiences with a resource that is not readily available in the text of the performance. In the brief song introduction below, the artist makes a connection to the labor of fishers that would not otherwise be readily available to the audience and by doing so, rather radically alters the interpretive frame that an urban, mid-western audience would bring to the text if left to their own resources. I was spending too much time in Maine and I was watching the lobster boats pullin’ up trap after trap with nothing in them that they could keep. So I wrote this song. It is called Come Up Full. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US)

Artists may also find that the audiences do not share a common language or set of cultural references that allow the ready establishment of shared meanings. If the intent of the writer is to be preserved, it may be necessary to do fairly extensive framing work. I write about rural life. If people don’t know what a holler is then the whole point of the song is lost. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US) Do you know what a truckie is? People over here don’t use the word much I guess. We use it in Australia all the time – it means a truck driver, and it is kind of important in this song. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Australian) Not that I get that much work in the US, but when I am playing down there I just don’t do as much of my French material. When I do, I try to tell them what the song is about, because I know that they are just not going to understand the lyrics. Sure there is often some French major that comes up after the show and talks to me in French, or somebody who has been transferred from Fredericton to Boston or something, but it is different knowing that most of the audience is just not going to get it. (Male, Singersongwriter, Canadian)

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Performers may also attend to the potential for audiences to make rather fundamental interpretive errors in approaching their music and may adopt strategies to resist unwelcome interpretations and to situate their performance in a preferred light. This is a song about killing a woman. Someone asked once what I would do if I ever found the perfect woman and I said that I would kill her. I would kill her so that no one else would ever have her. This is a song about that y but I didn’t do it though. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US) This song is a part of my agnostic gospel project. When I wrote it I thought, Oh no, I’ve written a deist song y but I thought if I heard it, at a Gospel or Bluegrass festival I would like it, so here it is y (Female, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US) The British and the Canadians all have a similar sense of humor. Americans are much slower to get irony, I think. I love touring there, the music is great, I always pick up a few new guitar licks, but you have to tell them, this one is a funny one, you know, I don’t really mean what I am saying, and that guy I’m singing about, John Major, he was the fucking Prime Minster. (Male, Singer-songwriter, English)

Artists may also alter the interpretive frame of an audience by locating the song in its historical context and, by doing so, modify the experience of the performance. Some artists work quite deliberately and consciously within the very old tradition of the troubadour – the singer whose songs have a purpose of disseminating information about events that might otherwise be concealed or lost to time. Examples include Bob Dylan’s Who Killed Davey Moore (written about the death of the boxer of the same name in 1963), Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (with its references to Leonard Peltier and the American Indian Movement), James Keelaghan’s Hillcrest Mine (which references the deaths of 189 miners in Canada’s worst mining disaster in 1914), and Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (which commemorates the loss of 29 crewmen when the bulk freighter sank in Lake Superior November 10, 1975). These historical narratives differ from folk songs more generally in that the singersongwriter is seeking to portray some element of cultural authenticity in their performance. Therefore, some artists make a point of distinguishing such songs from works that are to be understood in more fictionalized terms. This story was in a newspaper clipping sent to me from San Jose, California. In 1965, during the Vietnam War, Lisa Kalvelage and two other women, dressed in their Sunday best, stopped a shipment of napalm by standing on a loading platform, refusing to budge. She told this story to a newspaper reporter in court after being arrested. (Pete Seeger, 1998)

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Additionally, song introductions may serve to alter the interpretive frame of the song by placing it within a human narrative, thereby locating the song relative to biography. In the quotation that follows, Pete Seeger locates his fairly well-known version of Guantanamera in the context of a place, a time and the political circumstances that he identifies as salient. I am going to sing you another song. Jose Marti was born in 1853. When he was 17 years old he was active in the Cuban liberation movement. He was exiled by the Spanish government. He spent most of his life in exile including 12 years in New York City. He wrote 70 books-poetry, novels polemics. He was one of the greatest writers in the Spanish language. At the age of 42 he went back to Cuba and this is one of his last poems as he was killed within a year in an aborted uprising. After he died people put it to a popular tune. [Singing] Guantanamera y (Pete Seeger, 1989[1963])

Seeger’s introduction of Guantanamera may also be interpreted as indicative of the emotion work that may be undertaken by artists. In her thoughtful work on gender and emotion Shields (2004) makes the simple but important point that, when we study emotion, we are studying that which people take personally. To have an emotional relationship with a person or object is an indication that it is meaningful, and often deeply so, to the actors involved. Artists may, through their song introductions, invite audience members into a personal emotive relationship with the song and with the performance and at times may reveal their own emotive relationship with the song. I lost my father three years ago now. He was the moral force in our home. He didn’t say much, but he was always there and you knew you were loved. He didn’t have to say anything. I was touring when he died. So I went home and I buried my Pa and went back out on the road again as though my life were normal. But it wasn’t and it would never be again. So I wrote these songs and I am grateful that some of you have found comfort in them too. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Midwestern US) This was inspired by my parents fighting last year [and] how much it affected me. I’m all grown up, it isn’t supposed to. But it was my way of trying to let go of it all. I called it No Peace to Keep. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US)

I have attempted in this section to give readers a sense of some of the various strategies that artists may utilize in situating performance relative to particular interpretive vantage points. Consistent with interactionist practice I have not explicitly challenged the content of what is offered to audiences. However, like others who are situating public performances (e.g. professors, chefs, politicians, and magicians) folk artists may engage in misdirection, strategic reframing, lying, or other forms of intentional deception to enhance performance and modify audience definitions of the situation. However,

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whereas the successful public performance of card and dice hustlers (Prus & Sharper, 1991) or jockeys (Case, 1991) rather centrally hinges on deceiving audiences, within folk music deception is more of an available resource than a required one.6 so he says, ‘‘I learned this one from the great Townes Van Zandt’’ and people clap and they don’t know it was from a concert video, or he says ‘‘One of the great privileges of my career was to share the stage with this guy or that guy,’’ but it was just a workshop at a festival, or he says, ‘‘this one is a love song to my lovely wife,’’ but he doesn’t tell them that it was wife number one and not number three. The audience thinks what they want to think and it is a good show. You think I’m going to call someone on it? Take Neil Young’s song ‘‘Old Man.’’ He has said on stage that song is about an old rancher on his farm, but lots of other people, me included, think it is really about is father, his old man. Neil can say it is about whatever he wants, and for all I know he doesn’t really even know what he meant when he wrote it all those years ago. (Male, Festival Board Member, Canada)

In the preceding I have paid particular attention to artists’ attempts to situate their performance through the influence audience members’ interpretation of and relationship to the song and its singing. As such, I have focused rather exclusively on material that is more fully attentive to song content and meaning. However, much of what may be included in onstage introductions may have very little to do with lyrical content and much more to do with other aspects of the life and work of singer-songwriters. As Becker (1982) has argued, art is to be understood relative to the community context within which it occurs – the art world. Therefore, like other public performers (e.g. speakers who encourage book sales, athletes promoting brand loyalty, and politicians seeking donations), folk musicians may be particularly attentive to situating their performance relative to the creation of markets and marketing opportunities more generally.

ATTENDING TO MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Although some artists point out that the most personally lucrative side of the music business is songwriting, for contemporary folk artists who perform their own original material and are rarely ‘‘covered’’ by others, live performance provides an opportunity for direct sales of CDs (and less importantly secondary ‘‘merch’’ such as clothing). Song introductions may be used as a marketing opportunity or to attempt to create markets (Fine, 2004). In particular, artists may use various strategies to encourage audience members to: (a) attend to opportunities to purchase albums, (b) avail

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themselves of the opportunity to own a hand-signed copy of a CD, (c) purchase out-of-print CDs not available through retail outlets, (d) purchase music not currently available in the region, (e) purchase music before the official release date, and (f) provide financial support to independent artists. The following quotations illustrate these themes. I’ll be signing albums down at that little signing place at 1 or 1:30 tomorrow. So come on down. If you buy one of my albums I’ll sign that, I’ll sign your program, I’ll sign your sister. I’ll sign just about anything, but I’d rather sign my CD. (Canadian guitarist, Folk Festival) We will be taking a short intermission after we do one more for you. If you like what you are hearing and would like to support local music we have copies of both of our CDs available. They are $20 each and if you buy both of them you will get a free brownie. I’m not kidding, Danielle here makes great brownies and the only way to get one of them is to buy both CDs kids. You can’t buy the brownies, don’t ask, there might be a food inspector anywhere. Just buy the CDs. See you in half an hour. (Canadian band, community hall) We have been performing this song for a couple of years now, and reflecting our expertise in marketing, it wasn’t on any of the CDs we had to sell. We have fixed that now and it is the opening track on our new album. So if you heard it before and liked it, tonight is your chance to own it. (Canadian band, community hall) Canada has been really great to us, I mean really great, thank you. I understand that we are completely sold out in the record tent and we want to thank you for that. If you didn’t get the album you were looking for check us out on iTunes. We appreciate your support. (Australian band, Folk Festival)

MORAL ENTREPRENEURIAL WORK AND CULTURES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS Folk artists have long been associated with social movements, social change, and moral entrepreneurial activities more generally (Cantwell, 1996). In many respects, the subculture of folk music is illustrative of what Gusfield (1989) has referred to as a ‘‘culture of public problems.’’ So much so in fact that, as I have aforementioned, some working definitions of folk music associate the genre with protest music more or less exclusively. As a subcultural venture, folk performance has, over the years, been rather closely aligned with various social movements, specifically labor movements, the peace movement, the extended civil rights movement (including racial, gender, and gay and lesbian rights movements), the environmental

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movement, Aboriginal/Indian movements, and movements associated with prisoners of conscience. Reflecting the participation of folk music and their audiences in the extended culture of public problems, artists may weave song introductions directly to performances that are explicitly oriented towards the processes of defining or otherwise engaging social problems. As such, artists may be rather fully engaged in what Blumer (1971) frames as the generic social processes that accompany the definition, legitimization, and official response to social problems. The following quotations illustrate examples of the work of folk musicians to participate in the development of community definitions of social problems. There are lots of people who get discouraged about this damned human race but every time I think about it I think of Shakespeare-it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all y but if you would like to get out of a pessimistic mood yourself I have got a sure remedy for you. Get out and help those people down in Birmingham, Mississippi, or Alabama y There are many ways to do it, you don’t have to go down there yourself. There are all kinds of jobs to be done, it takes heads and hands and hearts, and then we will see this song come true y We Shall Overcome. (Pete Seeger, 1989 [1963]) This is one of the few overtly political songs I have ever written; it is a pinhead’s view of international relations. I’d send it out to Rumsfeld but he is gone, I’d send it out to George W. but I don’t think he’d get it so I guess it goes out to Condoleeze [Rice]. (Male, Singer-songwriter, US/British) I’ve written several songs over the years that have to do with my opposition to the death penalty in my country – which is work I still do. And there are a lot of reasons for that. My opposition to the death penalty is pretty core. I object to the damage that it does to my spirit for my government to kill people because my government is supposed to be me and I object to me killing people y it is really simple. So this is called Over Yonder and it is also called Jonathan’s Song. (Steve Earle, 2003)

Although most certainly variability exists between performers and performances, artists may significantly modify on-stage moral entrepreneurial activity in light of perceived differences between audiences, venues, and settings. Under some circumstances artists may adopt on-stage strategies that more directly challenge, whereas in other performances they may select lines of action that obscure or otherwise conceal political commitments. All you people holding up your lighters during that last number. I hope you liked it, from where I am standing it just looks stupid. You haven’t accomplished a fucking thing by singing along to a song. If you want to [support aboriginal land claims] you are going to have to get off your asses at some point and do something-something other than holding up a lighter. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Canadian)

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SCOTT GRILLS Sure some of my material is pretty in your face, particularly some of my spoken word art. But if you want to make a living in this business you need to know how to match the material to the audience. If I get a job playing a rural coffee house, then I know that the people who come there on a Thursday night for my show are not there to hear my angry songs, my college show. I won’t hide who I am but if you manage yourself in such a way that people will not listen to you, you have lost any chance to have even a small influence on how they think about poverty, or gun controls, or the death rates in our urban centers. (Male, Poet & Songwriter, US-based)

DISCLAIMERS AND RELATED ALIGNING ACTIONS An additional important interactional aspect of song introductions is in the extent to which artists may draw on introductions to offer disclaimers, accounts, justifications, or other related aligning actions as a means of situating performance and portraying role competence. Artists may utilize song introductions to place the self in a particular relationship with the song and with song performance – as a means of establishing the self at a particular proximity to the performance. Singer-songwriters do not have the distance of self from the material they perform that is available to interpreters of the music of others. For example, an artist interpreting a classic blues song that appears to tolerate domestic violence introduced the song this way. I am going to do a number for you now that was made famous by the late, the great, Billie Holiday, Ain’t Nobody’s Business (audience applause). (Female, Singer, Midwestern US)

This simple introduction does not make a topic of the content of the song but associates the performance with a legendary voice among female jazz and blues singers. By doing so, the artist distances herself from the song topic. However, singer-songwriters do not have this resource available to them. As the authors of the content to be performed, their public self is very much associated with the lyrical content of the song. They may seek to make clear to audiences that they are the creative force behind the song and performance (as opposed to interpreters of the music of others), whereas at the same time engaging in distancing strategies that attend to emergent selfother identities. Here is a miserable little blues for you. I used to write a lot like these when I thought that being miserable was cool. I’m older now so this is a much more sophisticated kind of whining. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US)

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Situating Public Performances [Singing sorrowfully] ‘‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.’’ [Speaking] That is how it all starts in my set, all moaning and complaining, then I complain some more. Best you get used to it. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Eastern US) I don’t know if all songwriters have this experience, but you write a song and try it out and it is just okay you know, and you put it away and then someone you really trust says you should try it out again, so here it is. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Mid-Western US) We have got a real downer for you, but we will have fun. It is about unemployment, adversity, and a natural disaster-something for everyone. (Male, Singer-songwriter, Western US) Here is my get-even song. It may not be a great song but it should be a reminder to all of you. Don’t screw over a folk singer or we can write about you and then we can sing it over and over again. And ladies, I didn’t even change his name so if you are ever in [my hometown] and he comes on to you just run. I mean it, run. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Canadian)

Although disclaimers and accounts may be used to justify the selection of song and repertoire (Albas & Albas, 1993; Hewitt & Stokes, 1975; Scott & Lyman, 1968), performers may also use introductions to excuse performances that fail to meet subcultural expectations of professional musicianship.7 Given that issues of performance competence are many and varied, nevertheless a rather central theme is the development of instrumental competence and musical fluency. Among singer-songwriters, this typically involves learning how to play the acoustic guitar. Reflecting concerns not dissimilar from those expressed by Haas and Shaffir’s (1987) study of medical students, some folk musicians may experience considerable ‘‘stage fright’’ that is directly related to their ability to maintain and sustain audience impressions of musical competence. I’ll say, ‘‘I’m going to do one now in the key of E’’ and I move my capo, and make it look all professional, but the only way I know it is in E is because someone who was sitting in with me told me. I learned how to play the guitar on my own. When I am up there on those workshop stages it terrifies me. These other musicians, they know so much and I am really a poet with a percussion instrument with strings sitting there. (Female, Singer-songwriter, Northwest US)

CONCLUSION Many years ago, Berger (1963) argued that a rather central feature of sociology was its tendency to debunk the social worlds we study. Interactionists have proven themselves exceptionally adept at this task. We have reframed 12 step programs (Irvine, 1999), examined the relationship of fear

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and the news industry (Altheide, 2002), and revealed the social importance of the apparently inconsequential encounters between doormen and the tenants with whom they interact (Bearman, 2005). In the most modest of ways, this chapter joins this debunking tradition. The work of the artist in framing their public performance is consequential to the musicianship to follow. It may both locate the performance and simultaneously be an aspect of performance. By attending to song introductions, locating them within a performance and subcultural context, and conceptually framing them relative to public performance more generally, the interactional relevance of this apparently mundane feature of human group life is drawn out and made analytically available. If one assumes that in the study of the performance of music that the ‘‘song is the thing’’ then important, relevant, and meaningful aspects of our understanding of performance will unhelpfully lie outside of the sociologists gaze. I would respectfully suggest that the relevance of this chapter extends beyond the boundaries of folk music. The processes to which I attend have a generic quality to them that extend well beyond this subculture. The processes that folk musicians are undertaking as a part of performance – attending to meaning, managing audience interpretations, engaging in misdirection, promoting ongoing involvements, and portraying competencies – are rather central to the process of situating public performances more generally. However, an attentiveness to this dynamic in other settings requires that detailed ethnographic attention be paid to these processes where they occur. I would very much encourage other researchers to borrow from the themes developed herein to attend to the interactional equivalents present within their own research settings. For, by asking extended questions about how public performances are framed, located, and situated, we gain a much richer understanding of the subcultural context of public performance than we ever can by attending to performance alone.

NOTES 1. For an extended discussion of subcultures and their central role in understanding human group life see Prus (1997) and Prus and Grills (2003). When one places folk artists in their larger community context one begins to attend to the diversity that I allude to here – a community consisting of those such as managers, audiences, customers, coffee house owners, booking agents, reporters, recording industry participants, artistic directors, house concert promoters, and folk festival staff.

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2. For a more substantively attentive definition of folk music readers are directed to Forcucci’s (1984) discussion. 3. The original source of this quotation is unknown to me. It is attributed to both Elvis Costello and Steve Martin. It has made its way into popular culture and has been adopted by the band Dancing for Architecture. 4. For a discussion of folk musicians and their audiences more generally see Sanders (1974). 5. For a related and helpful discussion see Fine’s (2004) examination of folk art and the place of artist identity therein. 6. For an extended discussion of music, manipulation, and related questions of identity see Martin (2006). 7. In this, the strategies used by folk musicians share much with the author who attempts to distance themselves from a text by referring to it as a ‘‘first draft,’’ a research grant applicant who seeks funding for an ‘‘exploratory study,’’ and the administrator who transfers responsibility for their actions on those who report to them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I thank Lonnie Athens, Ken Bessant, Kathy Charmaz, Sheilagh Grills, Anthony Puddephatt, and Clinton Sanders for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Of course, they share no responsibility for the shortcomings herein.

REFERENCES Adorno, T. 1974 [1951]. Minima moralia: Reflections from damaged life. London: New Left Books. Albas, D., & Mills Albas, C. (1993). Disclaimer mannerisms of students: How to avoid being labelled as cheaters. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 30, 451–467. Altheide, D. (2002). Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Bearman, P. (2005). Doormen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Becker, H. (1973[1963]). Outsiders. New York: The Free Press. Becker, H. (1982). Art worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to sociology. New York: Anchor. Bergson, H. (1965). Duration and simultaneity. Translated by Leon Jacobson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Blumer, H. (1971). Social problems as collective behavior. Social Problems, 1, 298–306. Cantwell, R. (1996). When we were good: The folk revival. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Case, C. (1991). Down the backstretch: Racing and the American dream. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Dunaway, D. K. (1987). Music as political communication in the United States. In: J. Lull (Ed.), Popular music and communication (pp. 36–52). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Earle, S. (2003). I oppose the death penalty. Just an American Boy: An Audio Documentary. Artemis Records. Fine, G. A. (2004). Everyday genius: Self-taught art and the culture of authenticity. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Forcucci, S. L. (1984). A folk song history of America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Grills, S., & Grills, S. (2008). The social construction of doubt: Women’s accounts of uncertainty and chronic illness. In: D. Driedger & M. Owen (Eds), Dissonant disabilities: Women with chronic illnesses theorize their lives. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Gusfield, J. (1989). Constructing the ownership of social problems; fun and profit in the welfare state. Social Problems, 26, 431–441. Haas, J., & Shaffir, W. (1987). Becoming doctors: The adoption of a cloak of competence. Greenwich: JAI. Hewitt, J. P., & Stokes, R. (1975). Disclaimers. American Sociological Review, 40, 1–11. Irvine, L. (1999). Codependent forevermore: The invention of self in a twelve step group. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Martin, P. J. (2006). Music and the sociological gaze: Art worlds and cultural production. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Prus, R. (1997). Subcultural mosaics and intersubjective realities: An ethnographic research agenda for pragmatizing the social sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press. Prus, R., & Grills, S. (2003). Engaging the deviant mystique: Involvements, realities and regulatory endeavors. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Prus, R., & Sharper, C. R. D. (1991). Road hustler. New York: Kaufman and Greenberg. Rodnitzky, J. L. (1976). Minstrels of the dawn: The folk-protest singer as cultural heroes. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Sanders, C. (1974). Psyching out the crowd: Folk performers and their audiences. Urban Life, 3, 264–282. Schutz, A. (1962). The problem of social reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Scott, M., & Lyman, S. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46–62. Seeger, P. (1989[1963]). Carnegie hall concert. Columbia Records. Seeger, P. (1998). Liner notes to where have all the flowers gone: The songs of pete seeger. Appleseed Recordings. Shields, S. (2004). Speaking from the heart: Gender and the social meaning of emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Simmel, G. (1950). The sociology of georg simmel. In: K. Wolff (Ed.). Glencoe: The Free Press. Simon, C. (1990). You’re so vain – VH1 interview. Carly Simon: Official Web Site. Retrieved on April 03, 2007. http://www.carlysimon.com/vain/vain.html

THE MUSIC RINGTONE AS AN IDENTITY MANAGEMENT DEVICE: A RESEARCH NOTE Christopher J. Schneider ABSTRACT The mobile telephone is an omnipresent feature of daily life. Mobile phone technology was made readily available to the general public in the early 1980s. A ‘‘ringtone’’ is the sound broadcast from a mobile telephone indicating an incoming call. The ringtones of early 1980’s mobile phones usually consisted of a few pre-programmed monophonic (single melodic line) sounds. These tones had no significance or practical use other than as indicators of social status (of having a mobile phone) and to alert the listener to an incoming call. The increasing popularity of ringtone ‘‘realtones’’ has prompted the need to empirically investigate the way these new technologies affect how people manage the impressions they make on others. Elaborating on Goffman’s presentation of self-thesis, this research note establishes the importance of ringtone technology in situating youthful identities in contemporary society. Implications for future research are discussed.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 35–45 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033005

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INTRODUCTION The creation of the mobile, or cellular (cell) phone (these terms will be used interchangeably) has extended telephone use, which was once largely considered a private affair, into the public sphere and, subsequently, everyday life. The novel ideas portrayed in Goffman’s (1959) influential The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, concerning imagery of the theater and social interaction, are useful when considering the use of cell phone ringtones as props to convey a particular and, one might add, favorable identity to an audience. Goffman’s central thesis contends that as social actors take into account their situational contexts; they select particular props to create a certain definition of self (depending on the situation, audience, time, place, and manner). Notably missing from Goffman’s body of work is an extended discussion of youth identity formation, especially from within the context of a total institution where one need not necessarily be confined permanently. This assumed identity becomes restricted in a place that captures the interest and time of its members; however, it may also serve as a physical barrier to social intercourse with the outside world (Goffman, 1961, 1963). For example, daily activities in the secondary education system, including learning, exercise, and eating, are conducted in the same place, in the company of other pupils required to do the same. These activities are tightly scheduled in prearranged time slots leading into other activities, and are controlled by a single fixed authority, all in an effort to fulfill the stated aims of the institution (Goffman, 1961). In these ways, the secondary education system represents a total institution. The importance of amending Goffman’s ideas here on the presentation of self, in light of new technological developments, is relevant to our greater understanding of identity management. This research note updates and builds on Goffman’s work in the following ways: it (1) explores youth identity formation in the confines of the secondary education system, and (2) considers recent developments in communication and information technologies that contribute to this process, particularly the cell phone ringtone and its ability to provide super or hyper auditory ‘‘tie-signs’’ relating to one’s identity (Goffman, 1961, 1971). According to Goffman (1971), tie-signs consist of fragmented pieces of public information conveyed by acting participants in the social realm. Through select social action, these pieces of information connect otherwise anonymous relationships between social participants, transforming the social encounter into the beginning of an anchored relationship where

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circumstances arise for the establishment of a particular social identity (Goffman, 1971). Establishing social identity at this early stage in a relationship is important, as ‘‘the beginning of an anchored relationship can depend on the memory each has of having seen the other before in a context that implies for each a relevant social identity for the other’’ (Goffman, 1971, p. 191). The manner and degree to which a ringtone, as an auditory tie-sign, is interpreted is therefore consequential to the establishment of social identity.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH Although there has been a proliferation of mobile technology in everyday life, empirical research on the social implications of mobile phone use has not kept pace with this development. To be sure, studies have been done, but they have not focused enough attention on the importance of mobile phone use on the practices that enable people to manage their identities in the presence of others. The specific concern here rests with the information people reveal about their identities during mobile phone usage and its potential impact on social interaction. However, the extant literature focuses on the national and global effects of mobile phone technology, addressing the intended (staying in touch) and unintended (always staying in touch) consequences of this technology on everyday social life (Agar, 2005; Ito, Okabe, & Matsuda, 2005; Katz & Aakhus, 2002). Other consequences of mobile technology on every day social life that have been examined, include both unwanted surveillance and the increased sense of security gained from being able to communicate with others where conventional phone lines are unavailable (Harper & Hamill, 2005; Levinson, 2004; Ling, 2004; Lyon, 2006; Reid & Reid, 2005; Rheingold, 2002; Schuchardt, 2003; Strate, 2003).

DATA AND METHODS This project occurred over the span of several months during the fall of 2006 while I was employed as a secondary education substitute teacher. Access to this setting, one that is highly protected from outsiders, allowed me to become more intimately familiar with select aspects of youth culture. The informal data gathered over the course of these dozens of observations,

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although not overtly reflected in the overall write-up of this project, informed its basic structure, direction, and outline. This project is unique in that it did not begin as a formal ethnography per se but, rather, later in some less distinct ways, developed into one. No formal structured interviews were conducted during this period due to the extreme (ages 13–18) sensitivity of the observed population. In an effort to avoid any ethical dilemmas, jottings of the day’s observations, activities, and conversations were taken down immediately on my return home, when I was both off school grounds and out of the immediate vicinity of anyone associated with the school. Extensive observations were conducted on school grounds between August 2006 and December 2006, immediately before, during (in the hallways and cafeteria), and after school and, most importantly, within the confines of the classroom. These descriptions of secondary education social life revealed that identity development and maintenance, especially among these youth, relies heavily (perhaps more than in other populations because of their limited freedoms) on props, most specifically, the cell phone. Despite formal policy against cell phone use, students would forthrightly ask if they could use their cell phones for text messaging and games after they completed their tasks (some teachers, myself included, allowed this behavior, whereas others did not). When this question was asked (as it most always was), I used my status as both teacher and trained observer to cautiously, mindful of the population, question students about their cell phones (discovering that most possessed them), their use of these devices and, in particular, their selection and use of their ringtones.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF RINGTONES According to The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), formed as a nonprofit organization in 1984, the number of wireless phone users in the United States has grown from fewer than 100,000 in 1985 to an estimated 180 million subscribers in 2004 and, as of mid-year 2006, a total of 219.4 million subscribers (CTIA ‘‘Wireless Quick Facts’’, 2006). As of July 1, 2006, the latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics estimated the population of the United States at just fewer than 300 million (299,398,484) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). It is almost certain that the number of wireless phone subscribers will continue to increase.

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The ringtones of early 1980’s mobile phones usually consisted of a few preprogrammed monophonic (single melodic line) sounds. These tones had no significance or practical use other than as a perceived indicator of social status (i.e., having a cell phone) and to alert the listener to an incoming call. In the past few years, however, the popularity of ringtones has exploded with the introduction of ‘‘realtones,’’ sometimes referred to as realtunes, truetones, or mastertones. These particular ringtones are 30-second excerpts of popular music recordings, such as those featured on the radio or on the top music charts (e.g., Billboard Hot 100). These tones can be easily downloaded or programmed into mobile phones compatible with this technology, which includes most, if not all, contemporary cell phones. The Billboard Hot Ringtones chart debuted at the end of 2004. Much like Billboard’s charts for album sales and radio airplay, the ringtone chart reflects the top polyphonic (multiple melodic line) ringtone sales for each week. It is based on aggregated data collected from all of the major cell phone carriers and distributors that is claimed to represent more than 90% of the market. The Hot Ringtones chart, according to Billboard, reflects ‘‘the most comprehensive market sample of ringtones worldwide and the single most comprehensive starting sample of any chart produced by Billboard to date’’ (Billboard Bows Ringtones Chart, 2004). The chart is endorsed both by CTIA and the Mobile Entertainment Forum, a global trade association representing participants in the mobile entertainment industry. Virgin Mobile USA recently announced that it now serves 4.6 million customers. In 2006, these customers alone downloaded over 14.8 million ringtones (Virgin mobile USA marks 4.6 million customers, 2007). The ringtone broadcasts information individually selected (in this instance, music), which, I contend, helps define who a person is. Apart from preprogrammed default ringtones (tones that come standard in all modern mobile phones); downloadable ringtones are purposefully selected more often than default tones (these are individually selected as well). In these instances the user must seek to acquire them (i.e., possess enough technological proficiency to download them) and pay an additional fee, ranging between $1.99 and $3.99. These fees vary, depending on the tone; for instance, monophonic tones tend to be less expensive, whereas realtones are more expensive. The simple fact that a user would pay between $1.99 and $3.99 for a 30-second snippet of a particular song (which, in all likelihood, the user may already possess), when the entire version can be purchased legally for as little as 88 cents, is certainly suggestive of the extent to which the ringtone factors into the concept of managing one’s identity.

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THE RINGTONE AS AN IDENTITY MANAGEMENT DEVICE The secondary education system operates as a total institution, established for the purpose of pursing work-like tasks (Goffman, 1961). The most basic features of any total institution concern the restriction or control of information, communication, and physical movement. Goffman (1961) contends that it is ‘‘characteristic of inmates that they come to the institution with a ‘presenting culture’’’ (p. 12). Culture is necessary for the creation of a social reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Popular culture provides both shared meaning and rules of social action, thus creating the conditions necessary for human beings to symbolically communicate meaning with one another. Popular culture can be loosely described as a fluid set of characteristics, beliefs, and practices collectively accepted and understood as the basis of normalcy. Music, for example, is a significant part of popular culture. Research literature supports the assertion that age is the single greatest factor in determining one’s allegiance to music (see Denisoff, 1975; Grossberg, 1992, 1997; Rose, 1994a), and is especially the case when considering rap and hip-hop music (Keyes, 2004; Rose, 1994b). According to the NPD Group, Inc., in 2006, youth consumers were more likely to download music ringtones. Data collected in a monthly survey in July 2006 indicated that 26% of customers were between the ages of 14 and 17, whereas 22% were between the ages of 18 and 24, with females downloading slightly more ringtones than males (Rap/Hip-Hop Ringtones Rule the Market, 2006). According to the most recent age data published by the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) and cited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 67.2% of the U.S. population consists of people between the ages of 15 and 64 (Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, 2007), with nearly 25% of the population under the age of 18 (U.S. Census Bureau USA Quickfacts, 2007). Ringtone selection among the observed population coincides in many ways with the research literature concerning youth music selection and hiphop. Some popular ringtones, for instance, included songs by hip-hop artists Akon (‘‘Smack That’’) and Fergie (‘‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’’). Students I observed were especially reluctant to discuss their selection of the former, because the lyrics referred to the performance of sexual acts. Maybe go to my place and just kick it, like Taebo, and possibly bend you over, look back and watch me smack that, all on the floor, smack that give me some more, smack that until you get sore, smack that oooh (Akon, 2007).

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The mere mention of this ringtone, for instance, would often induce giggle-like behavior in the classroom. The assumption was, of course, that I was unaware of the lyrical content. However, students sometimes indicated that they selected these and other suggestive ringtones (e.g., ‘‘Crazy Bitch’’ by the rock and roll group Buckcherry), not only because they liked the songs, but also, and importantly, because of the record producers’ apparent ability to ‘‘get away with’’ broadcasting inappropriate content (sexual or otherwise) right under the noses of unknowledgeable adults by wrapping in the cloak of popular culture. Culturally, politically, and socially, at least in the United States, those under a certain age (i.e., 18) are legally and collectively categorized as ‘‘youths’’ or ‘‘minors,’’ often with little (if any) regard and, in some instances, no tolerance for individualism or individualist-like behavior. As an example, consider the secondary education system where conformity to some rules (many of which are arbitrary) are not only expected, but also rigidly enforced. Acts or displays of individualism, many of which are perfectly normal and legal (say, wearing a baseball cap), that fall outside the established rules are punished and sometimes severely so (with suspension or expulsion). Youth spend a majority of their daily lives and, indeed, waking moments, in the confines of the education system; thus, the narrow social space that exists outside this system for youth to freely create and manage identities during social interaction takes on added importance. The construction of social identity occurs within a vast framework of communication, in which many actors who are sometimes unfamiliar with one another participate. These anonymous relationships, according to Goffman (1971), become meaningful only when participants act in response to fragments of information about one another that are made publicly available. Thus, the relations between these persons become mediated by ‘‘tie-signs’’ (p. 194) which point to or reveal ‘‘who they are’’. Ringtones perform the function of a special kind of tie sign in everyday life. The ringtone as an auditory tie-sign then simultaneously expresses both intentional and unintentional acts of impression management (as do many props); however, music is symbolically laden perhaps more than other physical objects and, therefore, it can be assumed that meanings derived from a ringtone can be multiple or fragmented, depending on song selection, audience members, and the time, place, and manner in which the ringtone is broadcasted (Goffman, 1959, 1971). ‘‘A tie-sign is in fact dependent on the context for its meaning’’ (Goffman, 1971, p. 197), and these contexts can vary considerably.

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Consider, for instance, the popular ringtone ‘‘Bad Boys’’ (originally released as a full-length single in 1993), recorded by reggae group Inner Circle. The ringtone peaked on Billboard’s Hot Ringtones Chart at number 30 and has remained on the chart for over 110 weeks. The song was made popular by the television program COPS (currently in its 19th season) and also by the films Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The lyrics are sung over a smooth-flowing reggae composition: Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha goin’ do? Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha goin’ do? Whatcha goin’ do when Sherrif John Brown come for you? Tell me, whatcha goin’ do? (Inner Circle, 1993)

The lyrics, as stated, are not too difficult to decipher. However, to those familiar enough with either COPS or the Bad Boys films, the ringtone could be thought to convey contradictory signals to an audience that could readily interpret the tune as either a testament to the enforcement of the law and rendering of justice, thus validating the hosts’ crimefighter image (Cavender, 1998) or, considering the content of the show (e.g., lawlessness, disorderly conduct, belligerence, intoxication, and violence), as mocking the law-enforcement community. The ringtone could also offer panopticonic surveillance suggestions to those familiar with the television program: break the law and we (i.e., the police) will find you (see Foucault, 1995; Marx, 1995). Someone unfamiliar with the above television program and films could interpret the tune in various other ways (e.g., reggae has a reputation as party or anthem music and is widely associated with marijuana use). Mobile phone technology has created new standards of etiquette and consumption practices, prompting users to sometimes exert control over the unintended revelation of individual ringtone selection. In these circumstances, such as the school classroom, students would most always set their cell phones to ‘‘silent’’ or ‘‘vibrate’’ to avoid reprimand or confiscation. In other front-stage regions, users are freely able to manage multiple ringtones on one mobile phone (a process I call tone-shifting), a similar activity to the various ways in which human actors modify their style of dress for different social settings. In ordinary social situations, however, performance blunders, such as failure to control the revelation of ringtone selection, can and do occur (I refer to this as an identity blitzkrieg). In these events, the temporary loss of the ability to control these fragmented pieces of information about oneself creates the threat that an audience could interpret that information as contradicting their previously formed positive impression of the actor (Goffman, 1971), which could seriously disrupt the ongoing social

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interaction. If actors become incapable of reliably controlling the information revealed about themselves, then it makes impression management, and, in turn, social interaction highly problematical for all concerned (Goffman, 1959). When interpreted unfavorably, the ringtone could invite or generate unfavorable reaction from an audience, jeopardizing their initial favorable definition of the person, even though recovery of a positive identity may be later possible. Ringtone technology is unique, then, in its capacity to change swiftly the impression (either positively or negatively) that an actor is making on an audience. Thus, it can undermine our attempts to create or maintain a favorable impression on others.

CONCLUSION This research note spotlights the importance of the need for more empirical research assessing the relationships between technology, identity, and social interaction. Though the ringtone is meaningful, it is not the only element in establishing a social identity, nor is social identity the only element in shaping social interaction. Nevertheless, ringtone preferences are potent tie signs of people’s identities and, thereby, can dramatically affect social interaction, Thus, Goffman’s ideas on the presentation of self need to be amended in light of ways that new technological developments create new challenges for our managing the impression that we make on other people during social interaction. The next steps in this research program should include exploring the affects of ringtones on the impression management practices among different populations in other institutional settings and, more importantly, the general impact on identity of music that people buy and listen to and the public places where they go to listen to it. This is part of future writing on the subject.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank David Altheide, Lonnie Athens, Joe Kotarba, Gary Marx, and Ariane Hanemaayer for their helpful suggestions and advice on earlier versions of this manuscript. I also would like to thank the students at the high school for sharing their thoughts and opinions with me as well as my brother Kevin whose music continues to inspire me.

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REFERENCES Agar, J. (2005). Constant touch: A global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Totem Books. Akon. (2007). ‘‘Smack That.’’ Ringtone. Verizon Wireless/Umvd/Import. ‘‘Billboard bows ringtones chart.’’ (October 26, 2004). Available at http://www.billboard.com/ bbcom/news/article_displayjs.p?vnu_content_id ¼ 1000684908. Retrieved on January 5, 2007. Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. New York: Penguin Press. Cavender, G. (1998). In ‘The Shadow of Shadows’: Television reality crime programming. In: M. Fishman & G. Cavender (Eds), Entertaining crime (pp. 79–94). New York: Aldine De Gruyter. Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook. (2007). Available at http://www.cia.gov/cia/ publications/factbook/print/us.html. Retrieved on April 5. Denisoff, R. S. (1975). Solid gold: The popular record industry. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison (Original work published 1977). New York: Random House. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday Press. Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums. New York: Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. New York: Harper & Row. Grossberg, L. (1992). We gotta get out of this place. New York: Routledge. Grossberg, L. (1997). Dancing in spite of myself. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Harper, R., & Hamill, L. (2005). Kids will be kids: The role of mobiles in teenage life. In: L. Hamill & A. Larson (Eds), Mobile world: Past, present and future. Guilford, UK: Springer Publishing. Inner Circle. (1993) ‘‘Bad Boys.’’ Ringtone. Verizon Wireless/Big Beat/Wea. 2007. Ito, M., Okabe, D., & Matsuda, M. (Eds). (2005). Personal, portable, pedestrian: Mobile phones in Japanese life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Katz, E. J., & Aakhus, M. (Eds). (2002). Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Keyes, C. (2004). Rap music and street consciousness. Champaign Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press. Levinson, P. (2004). Cellphone: The story of the world’s most mobile medium and how it has transformed everything!. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ling, Rich. (2004). The mobile connection: The cell phone’s impact on society. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Lyon, D. (2006). Theorizing surveillance: The panopticon and beyond. Devon, UK: Willan. Marx, G. T. (1995). Electric eye in the sky: Some reflections on the new surveillance and popular culture. In: J. Ferrell & C. R. Sanders (Eds), Cultural criminology (pp. 106–141). Boston: Northeastern University Press. NPD Group, Inc (September 20, 2006). Rap/Hip-hop ringtones rule the market. Available at http://wireless.npd.com/news091106.html. Retrieved on January 4, 2007. Reid, D. J., & Reid, F. J. M. (2005). Kids will be kids: The role of mobiles in teenage life. In: L. Hamill & A. Larson (Eds), Mobile world: Past, present and future. Guilford, UK: Springer Publishing.

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Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Rose, T. (1994a). Microphone Fiends’ youth music and youth culture. New York: Routledge. Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Schuchardt, R. M. (2003). How to quit smoking using only your cell phone. Explorations in Media Ecology, 2(1), 25–34. Strate, L. (2003). The cell phone as environment. Explorations in Media Ecology, 2(1), 19–24. U.S. Census Bureau. (July 2006). National and State Population Estimates. Available at http:// www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html. Retrieved on January 11, 2007. U.S. Census Bureau USA Quickfacts. (April 2007). Available at http://quickfacts.census.gov/ qfd/states/00000.html. Retrieved on April 5. Virgin mobile USA marks 4.6 million customers. (2007). Available at http://www.prnewswire. com/. Retrieved on January 4. Wireless Quick Facts. (September 2006). Available at http://www.ctia.org/news_media/ index.cfm/AID/10202. Retrieved on January 8, 2007.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME Jude Robinson ABSTRACT The production of an ethnographic film offers a ‘way of seeing’ for researchers exploring the lives of others, and one that remains open to further interpretation. The film Home, directed by Jeff Togman, documents a momentous 10 weeks in the lives of Sheree Farmer and Mary Abernathy, as they participate in a project designed to move selected families out of the Newark slums to new houses in a ‘better area’. Home also includes interviews with others concerned in the project, and images of the local area where the old and the new houses are located. What the film reveals is the complexity of the emotional and social, rather than simply the legal and economic, decision-making process surrounding the proposed move. It also shows how two people, depending on whether or not they are part of the dominant social group, can perceive an apparently golden and life-changing opportunity very differently. Ultimately, Home gives an insight into the lived experience of a lone mother’s participation in a neighbourhood regeneration project, and powerfully calls into question the values that underpin much of our thinking about how problems of poverty and neighbourhood could, and should, be resolved.

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INTRODUCTION As the use of film to capture social behaviour has increased over the past few decades, there is some debate over how such powerful information should be used, and the results of filming presented to a wider audience (Pink, 2007). For those following a more positivist perspective, the aim is to document the lived experience as closely as possible, and to minimise first, the possible impact of filming on behaviour and, second, the intervention of the camera operator on behaviour. Inevitably this desire to intervene as little as possible in the ‘natural world’ means that the resulting film is ‘edited’ rather than interpreted, leading to the production of a film, or documentary, where much of the ‘human intervention’ has been removed (Collier & Collier, 1986; Harper, 1998). Unsurprisingly, this view of film has been criticised by film-makers coming from a more interpretivist perspective (Banks, 2001; Pink, 2007; Prosser, 1998). For these film-makers, the resulting film is not intended to simply document reality. Instead, through interaction between the researcher (who may or may not also be operating the camera) and the researched, an ethnographic account is co-created. Decisions about what can, cannot, and should be recorded are also constantly being made by those filming, and in common with all ethnographic research, there is an acceptance that any resulting film represents a partial view of the field (Ball, 1998). Furthermore, the initial film footage may be analysed and interpreted not only by the researcher(s) but also by the participants, or other people from their community, who may be able to offer their own views about what was actually going on, and what should or should not be included in the final film (Pink, 2007). Therefore applying an interpretivist perspective to film-making is essentially a co-operative and reciprocal process, where film is both used to capture and to (re)produce aspects of human behaviour, and where the context (social, environmental, physical, etc.) is an important aspect of the resulting film.

The Chance to Go ‘Over the Rainbow’ The film Home starts with dramatic filming from the recent past: original footage from the Newark Riots, showing scenes of violence both between residents, and residents and the police, the looting of businesses and the general destruction of a neighbourhood (Togman, 2005). This black and white archive footage later blends seamlessly into colour scenes from the

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Newark, New Jersey, of the present, in which director Jeff Togman contextualises the life of Home’s central character, single-mother Sheree Farmer. The plotline is deceptively simple. Sheree has been given the opportunity to buy her own home, and get out of the ghetto. After watching these opening scenes of Home, I wondered what the rest of the film could be about? Surely this was a simple choice for a mother of six young children: either stay in the ghetto where she lived, knowing that her children faced an uncertain future being exposed to an environment apparently dominated by drugs and violence, or move out to a beautiful new home in a better area? All she had to do was clear her debts, and with the assistance of the energetic, resourceful and apparently empathetic Mary Abernathy, that too would be achieved. What could go wrong? Yet this is the challenge of the film, as it dispassionately shows viewers that any study of human motivation is rarely straightforward. As Whyte (1997) found in his study of managers and workers, theories that attempt to describe predictable patterns of human behaviour are often challenged when applied to people in ‘real’ settings, as people often act in ways that seem contrary to their economic interests. Whyte goes on to conclude that this is perhaps an inevitable consequence when such theories are designed to reflect group behaviours rather than individual situated actions. This film is very much an individual story, and the action moves fluidly from the public to the domestic spheres, following Sheree through aspects of her daily life, such as feeding her children, getting them in and out of bed, keeping them out of trouble and going to work. In this way our interpretation of her ‘public’ and the ‘private’ self begins to meld, and through this beguiling picture of intimacy we appear to gain an insight into her lived reality (Goffman, 1959). As the camera is kept at eye level, viewers feel that they, too, are privileged visitors, and there is a real intimacy about the way the film bobs and weaves between the different local settings. An interpretivist perspective requires a level of engagement with the people being filmed, and therefore it is impossible and undesirable to produce an objective view of social life, one where the person operating the camera is absent (Henley, 1998). Although unsmiling throughout, Sheree appears relaxed with the camera, and happy that the film crews are there. Sheree seems to have a particularly close relationship developing with Jeff, evidenced by her apparent willingness to be physically close to the camera, and her occasional use of his name, with specific comments addressed to him rather than to the wider audience. This closeness exemplifies the reflexive use of video recording in ethnographic study, where the act of making the film is ‘not simply to record data, but as a medium through which ethnographic

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knowledge is created’ (Pink, 2007). There is a feeling that this is a collaborative project, with Sheree an active and willing participant, who is happy to have the camera trained on her and her family. This supports Banks’ (2001) view that it is possible to observe relatively natural behaviour even when there is a ‘explicit and self-conscious research agenda’ as the agreement to film is often only made once the researcher and the researched have reached some kind of understanding with one another, and so can be relaxed and informal, as if the camera were not present.

The Ideology of Dreams Through the film we also get to know Mary Abernathy, a local philanthropist, through her work in housing and regeneration and her regular encounters with Sheree. Immaculately dressed and coiffed, and exuding calm and confidence in meetings with the potential tenants for the new buildings, Mary candidly talks on camera about her own hopes and fears for Sheree and what she believes will be achieved by the move. Her confidence in what the move will mean, a home in a new neighbourhood as a fresh start for Sheree and her children, in short, the chance of a ‘better life’, is persuasive, as is her certainty that Sheree will succeed. Mary makes successive visits to the site of the new home as if to emphasise her involvement in every stage of this project, from the site, the construction, the selection of families, and her support to make sure that the families meet the criteria necessary to take possession. Mary is passionate about the project and appears not to be afraid of showing how important this project is to her, and how personal her stake is that Sheree will succeed. Or rather we get to see Mary’s ‘public’ self, as we never go with her to her actual home, nor see her performing domestic chores, which is one of the more obvious ‘boundaries’ presented by this film, although there are other boundaries that are less visible, which become apparent as the film unfolds.

Real and Imagined Perceptions of the Move As the film progresses, we become aware that the apparent ‘access’ the filming gives us to Sheree’s life is illusory. When we hear her vocalise to us (her audience) what the move will mean to her and her children, we become aware of the distances between her and her audience(s), and are made to realise the limitations of our understanding. In his critique of Mead’s (1934)

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view of the ‘self’, Athens emphasises that even when we are apparently conversing with an interlocutor, there are ‘phantom others’ who are not present: The only time during which a glimpse can be caught of our phantom community is when we are caught up in the throes of dramatic personal change. It is only when we are undergoing dramatic personal change that we become painfully aware of our companions’ presence in our lives. (Athens, 1994)

For Sheree, these ‘phantom others’ are the intended audience of the film, the wider society whose values and social codes she is aware of, but does not necessarily understand or follow herself. This perhaps explains why for her, or rather her ‘self’, the move is not straightforward. When talking to Mary Abernathy and to Jeff, she talks about needing to move for her children, and that this is the chance she has been waiting for. Yet on another level the thought of the new ‘home’ appears to cause her unhappiness, stress and anxiety, only part of which is confided to Jeff and the audience. As Denzin reminds us, ‘a discourse is always more than what is said or seen’ (Denzin, 1997). For Sheree, open gestures of help are endlessly analysed and questioned, as she reflects that nobody has ever ‘given’ her anything in her life, so she is mistrustful and scared, rather than elated and grateful. She unpicks words and phrases and looks for hidden meanings, always watching for the ‘catch’. In her world there is always a ‘catch’, relating perhaps to the work of Oscar Lewis (1968) and others around the ‘culture of poverty’, where alternative social norms govern understanding (Rainwater, 1970; Wilson, 1993). So, even when a friend visits the promised new house and goes over the agreement with the housing agent and tells Sheree (as someone Sheree has said that she can trust) that the offer is genuine and that she should take it, she appears to remain unconvinced, with none of her doubts resolved. Sheree is even suspicious of the endless help and support offered to her by Mary Abernathy, and the personal bond that Mary establishes between them seems to become another burden Sheree has to bear, another obligation to meet (Finch & Mason, 1992; Graham, 1984; Hattery, 2001). When a man she owes money to say that he ‘may be willing to come to an arrangement’ she is again suspicious, what can he want? The question of sexual favours seems to spring to her mind and is vigorously rejected, even though as part of the audience, my interpretation of what was on offer was a financial arrangement. Later, this financial offer is rejected in a burst of moral outrage: the debt is connected with her providing bail for her husband, who subsequently failed to appear in court. Why should she pay?

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She does not ‘owe’ anything. It is a personal sense of natural justice rather than an understanding of the law that appears to motivate Sheree here. Although an understandable view in many ways, her apparently moral stance at this point has dramatic consequences, as it is the failure to clear this debt, a few thousand dollars, which stands between her and the ‘dream home’. There is a real sense of suspense at this stage in the film, and although as a member of the audience I was sure all the issues would be resolved, I began to feel uncomfortable as the action continued at a measured rather than an artificially accelerated pace. The film at all times appears to be absorbed in the ‘actual’ and the ‘real’ events rather than an imagined plot sequence, and the pace appeared to reflect the long drawn out final days for all of the people involved. As the time to the deadline ticks away, Mary offers to loan Sheree the money. This generous offer of a loan, perhaps even a gift, is not taken up, but by an act of omission rather than an outright rejection. Sheree simply does not return Mary’s calls. Had she engaged with Mary around the question of money and loans, Sheree may have been out-manoeuvred, as the dialogue offered by Mary and the phantom others might have subsumed Sheree’s own inner dialogue, the one she did not outwardly share (Athens, 1994).

NEIGHBOURHOOD, IDENTITY AND THE ‘GOOD MOTHER’ It is at this moment, when Sheree appears to fail to respond to Mary’s offer of help, those of us watching the film realise it is not about the money and it never was. As Henley observes: The implicit theory of knowledge is that true social reality is not to be found at the superficial, observable details of everyday life, but rather in the underlying relationships and sentiments and attitudes that sustain them. (Henley, 1998)

Many of the activities we might have identified as ‘central’, are actually ‘peripheral’ and vice versa. The barrier to Sheree leaving the ghetto was not her debts, but Sheree herself. The apparent peripheral action, which included the problems her children were experiencing in keeping out of trouble, her explosive relationship with her beloved older daughter, the poor relationship with her ex-husband, a recovering crack-addict, the challenges of the neighbourhood, are Sheree’s lived reality – the ‘dream home’ is just that, a dream, and the attempts by others to make it part of her reality

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frightens her rather than excites her. Her status and identity are grounded in her being a ‘good mother’, as coping in adversity, managing to keep her family together and out of trouble is her life’s work (Finch & Droves, 1983; Graham, 1993; Hattery, 2001). Far from supporting her, moving to a ‘decent’ neighbourhood would actually take that achieved status away. Who is celebrated merely for merely living in ‘good neighbourhoods’? What is remarkable about ‘managing’ in comparatively affluent circumstances? Studies of health inequalities linked to material and social disadvantage have repeatedly shown that it is the relative, rather than the absolute level of poverty that people experience, that adversely or positively impacts on their lives (Bartley, 2004). It is possible that people who live in areas of disadvantage, as Sheree does, are less aware of their absolute poverty, because it is relative only to the people who live in their immediate neighbourhood. Move to a more affluent neighbourhood, but keep the same income, and you may become aware of just how poor you are. The centrality of Sheree’s personal identity as a ‘good mother’ to her decision making is supported by Hattery’s study of women caring for children, living in the United States. Although the women constructed their views of ‘the ideal mother’ in different ways, it was still the ‘centrepiece around which all the other factors were considered’ (Hattery, 2001). Their work and childcare strategies, and all concomitant economic decision making, relate to the ‘balancing and weaving’ required in the ‘work’ that women like Sheree undertake to keep their family together.

WHOSE DREAM IS IT ANYWAY? In fact, after watching the film, I came to question whose dream was it anyway? This film subtly tapped into a dominant social and popular ideology, where neighbourhood (environment) is identified as the key social determinant, and by transforming the neighbourhood (or removing to a new one), in a single ‘Cinderella’ moment, all other problems will be resolved. Although the links between geography and poverty are complex, there is a tendency to simplify the relationship (Dorling et al., 2007). It was certainly Mary Abernathy’s dream to be part of a project that gives people living in disadvantage a new opportunity. It was also the dream of the strangely anonymous woman and her daughters who did receive the house, whose tears of apparent happiness were as hard to watch as Mary’s tears when she realised Sheree was not coming to make the deadline. As a viewer, I found myself complicit in the dream, waiting for the wave of the magic wand that

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would change Sheree’s life and that of her children in an ultimate ‘home makeover’, even though the film had already revealed arguments, rifts and potential problems that were unlikely to have been resolved by a change of location, or new curtains. It was only after watching the film through for a second time that I began to realise what had been shown during the film, but that I had not seen on the first viewing, bound up as I was in the ‘fairy story’ genre. That Sheree already lived in a previously regenerated area, one that had been created some years before but had ‘de-generated’, and was therefore still seen as the ‘ghetto’, the place where Sheree and people like her, as well as others lived (Park, 1952). It could be that there was a hidden clue in the way in which Home, perhaps deliberately, mirrored the film The Wizard of Oz with the opening scenes moving from black and white into colour, except the colour scenes in Home were of an ‘over the rainbow’ vision that had degenerated into a ghetto and not the dream world that Dorothy saw. Just as The Wizard of Oz was found to be a posturing fake, using smoke and mirrors to disguise what he really was, so too are regeneration projects that fail to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and violence that create the need for people to move away from their current homes? No wonder then, that Sheree, like Dorothy, preferred her home to the ‘dream’. Therefore perhaps Sheree had greater wisdom than her audience and had seen it all before: this whole ‘experiment’ of knocking down old houses and putting new ‘dream homes’ in their place without tackling many of the underlying problems? As we know from research, expressing a preference for a particular ‘home’ is not a simple function of that home’s ‘quality’, but is linked to a person’s emotional ties to that home, linked to feelings of independence and autonomy (Graham, 1987; Hardey & Crow, 1991). Sheree was clearly aware of the importance of the social as well as the physical environment she would be living in, characterised by the centrality of ‘the family’ to her ideas of ‘home’ (Allan & Crow, 1989). If she did what others were telling her to do, she would be moving away from all of her friends, and all of her children’s friends. She would be leaving strong social ties, people (she said) she could trust and count on, in exchange for neighbours she did not yet know and, for all she knew, might have nothing in common with her. In that area, where the ‘feminisation of poverty’ means that the majority of women caring for children, whether lone parents or in a partnership, are poor, Sheree was at home. A UK study found that in some areas, where mother-centred families resided, the children were more likely to live in the local area after they had left home (Elias & Scotson, 1994). This suggests

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that mothers are the central element of geographical as well as social stability, with neighbourhoods held together through cross-cutting ties of kinship as well as friendship, rather than geographical proximity through residence. With a mid-teen daughter threatening to leave home, perhaps where her children would subsequently live was a part of Sheree’s thinking, as it is unlikely that they would be able (or even willing) to remain in the newly regenerated area. The balance sheet that was presented to the audience included her debts, the down payment on the house, the repayments she would need to make, and the future value of the house. Seemingly, Sheree would appear to be considerably in profit. However, her personal balance sheet, that actually informed her decision-making, included items that were outside Mary Abernathy’s frame of reference. Throughout the film, we had watched Sheree accessing informal sources of support within her neighbourhood, including childcare, friendship and social support, without them being given a ‘value’. Such social supports are of particular value to lone mothers who, regardless of their social and economic circumstances, may suffer from geographical isolation as well as social isolation (Allan & Crow, 2001). Emotional support enables women to ‘cope’ with poverty, is therefore an important means of sustaining positive mental health. The lack of ‘value’ given to informal sources of support is linked to the fact that, in many disadvantaged communities, reciprocity, that is, an informal but relatively equal exchange of goods and services over time, is preferred to the exchange of money (Lister, 2004). As such these sources of support may remain ‘invisible’ and certainly were not listed on any of the many balance sheets we saw flourished at various parts in the film that apparently contained all of Sheree’s assets and debts. If Sheree stayed where she was, her social position was assured, whereas if she moved to a new neighbourhood, it was uncertain (Elias & Scotson, 1994). She would be gaining a valuable house that would appreciate over time, but I would argue that the value of what she would be leaving was not adequately taken into account. Put simply, home is where the heart is. Sheree’s heart was never into moving away to a new house and neighbourhood where she would be a nobody by leaving her old house and neighbourhood, where she was a somebody. Despite the number of very moving and highly charged scenes in the film, there is a surprising lack of sentimentality about Home, which is a real tribute to the filmmakers themselves. Yet this dispassionate view also comes from the central character herself, as, despite her obvious problems, Sheree does not seem to feel sorry for herself, and it is her agency and the

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operation of that agency to maintain her own sense of self, that kept me watching.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The issues and arguments made in this article formed part of a paper presented at the Couch-Stone Symposium, 5 May 2007 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and I am grateful to my colleagues for the ensuing critical discussion, and to Lonnie Athens and Norman Denzin for their comments.

REFERENCES Allan, G., & Crow, G. (1989). Home and family. London: Macmillan. Allan, G., & Crow, G. (2001). Families, households and society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Athens, L. (1994). The self as a soliloquy. Sociological Quarterly, 35(3), 521–532. Ball, M. (1998). Remarks on visual competence as an integral part of ethnographic fieldwork practice: The visual availability of culture. In: J. Prosser (Ed.), Image-based Research. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Banks, M. (2001). Visual methods in social research. London: Sage. Bartley, M. (2004). Health inequality: An introduction to theories, concepts and methods. Cambridge: Polity Press. Collier, J., & Collier, M. (1986). Visual anthropology: Photography as a research method. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretative ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dorling, D., Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Ballas, D., Thomas, B., Fahmy, E., Gordon, D., & Lupton, R. (2007). Poverty, wealth and place in Britain, 1968 to 2005. Bristol: Policy Press. Elias, N., & Scotson, J. (1994). The established and the outsiders. London: Sage. Finch, J., & Droves, D. (1983). A labour of love: Women, work and caring. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Finch, J., & Mason, J. (1992). Negotiating family responsibilities. London: Tavistock. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. Graham, H. (1984). Women, health and the family. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books Ltd. Graham, H. (1987). Being poor; perceptions and coping strategies of lone mothers. In: J. Brannen & G. Wilson (Eds), Give and take in families. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Graham, H. (1993). Hardship and health in women’s lives. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Hardey, M., & Crow, G. (1991). Lone parenthood. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

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Harper, D. (1998). An argument for visual sociology. In: J. Prosser (Ed.), Image-based research: A sourcebook for qualitative researchers (pp. 24–41). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Hattery, A. (2001). Women, work, and family: Balancing and weaving. London: Sage. Henley, P. (1998). Film-making and ethnographic research. In: J. Prosser (Ed.), Image-based research: A sourcebook for qualitative researchers. London: Routledge-Falmer. Lewis, O. (1968). Culture of poverty. In: D. Moynihan (Ed.), On understanding poverty: Perspectives from the social sciences. New York: Basic Books. Lister, R. (2004). Poverty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mead, G. (1934). Mind, self & society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Park, R. (1952). Human communities. New York: Free Press. Pink, S. (2007). Doing visual ethnography. London: Sage. Prosser, J. (1998). Image-based research: A sourcebook for qualitative researchers. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Rainwater, L. (1970). Beyond ghetto walls: Black families in a federal slum. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Togman, J. (2005). Home (VHS Tape, 85 minutes). United States: A Kikker Arts production. Whyte, W. (1997). Creative problem solving in the field: Reflections on a career. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press. Wilson, W. (1993). The ghetto underclass: Social science perspectives. London: Sage.

THE STRUCTURE OF FLIRTATION: ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF INTERACTIONAL AMBIGUITY Iddo Tavory ‘‘The bodies felt this contact, muffled by their clothing, as delicately indistinct as things seen in the moonlight.’’ (Robert Musil, 1995 [1952], p. 306)

ABSTRACT This chapter delineates the interactional structure of flirtation. Refining Simmel’s analysis, I show flirtation as a way in which two time frames are continuously maintained within the same interaction. Rather than moving into a future interaction by using what I term ‘‘actualization practices’’ – actions which thrust the present interaction into a future – interactants simultaneously use practices from both time frames, careful not to irrevocably shift the situation. The management of interactional ambiguity in flirtation is then analyzed as a key to examine other ambiguous or ‘‘suspended’’ interactions, where interactants must work to keep different potential future possibilities open.

INTRODUCTION In a crowded bar, two women in their early 20s are sitting together across the counter, drinking beers and talking. In the pauses between bouts of conversation, they look

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IDDO TAVORY around at others in the bar, seemingly bored. After a while, a man sitting on the right of one of them turns to her, ‘‘always crowded on Thursdays, isn’t it?’’ they start talking, mostly about the bar itself, how it became too popular for its own good, and how it used to be before. Throughout the conversation the man intermittently touches the women’s hand or shoulder, stressing his words by pressing it, and at one point, they continue talking while lightly holding hands for a few seconds. After about ten minutes, the girl’s friend says something to her, and she tells the man she has to leave. ‘‘Have to go. See you around?’’ she says, looking into his eyes and raising her chin with a little smile. The man returns a smile, ‘‘hope so.’’

This chapter delineates the structure of flirtatious interactions. As opposed to psychological or philosophical treatments of flirtation through the prism of desire or specialized language usages, I set out to chart the ways in which interactants pragmatically manage flirtations as a distinct interactional form. Though this social form has been one of the first to receive sociological attention by Simmel at the beginning of the 20th century, I argue that an analysis of the ways in which this social form is performed in action, extends Simmel’s analysis from a study of ‘‘distances of desire’’ to the question of the management and performance of interactional ambiguity. Thus, the study of flirtation becomes an interactional case in a larger class of ‘‘suspended interactions,’’ where interactants’ main aim is not to define the situation, but rather to leave it open to possible, potential, futures. The delineation of everyday social ‘‘forms’’ has been, of course, at the heart of interactionist literature since its inception (see, Davis, 1959, 1961; Garfinkel, 1956; Glaser & Strauss, 1965; Goffman, 1959, 1963, 1967; Katz, 1996). Yet, though this varied literature was influenced by Simmel (1971), interactionist sociology substituted and developed key-features of Simmel’s sociology of form. With its focus on the pragmatic emergence of social structures and emphasizing interactions’ constant construction and management, the abstract notion of ‘‘form’’ was augmented by an attention to process and embodied action. Thus, in Goffman’s (1963) study of Stigma, to take a classical example, what counts as a ‘‘stigma’’ is extremely fluid, from a bald spot hidden with a bad hairdo to the color of one’s skin. Far beyond Simmel’s static analysis, the interactional elements that tie these cases together in a common form are found in action, and in the resulting similarity in situated impression management. But where most studies of such interactional structures focus on interactants’ attempts to ‘‘define the situation’’ or control information to suit their pragmatic ends (e.g. Goffman, 1963, 1967; Glaser & Strauss, 1964, 1965), I argue that flirtation is an interactional form in which ambiguity itself is the object of interaction. Thus, the parties in the interaction must

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navigate the situation so it does not become congealed into an interaction in which roles are well-defined. As in a series of other social interactions – from the tentative entrance into a group, to the giving of suspended judgment – interactants must simultaneously manage multiple, and sometimes conflicting, interactional roles. As such, the analysis of flirtation can be read through the concept of ‘‘awareness contexts’’ (Glaser & Strauss, 1964). On the one hand, the interactants usually know they are involved in a flirtation, making it an ‘‘open awareness context,’’ in which information is not withheld. However, the management of flirtation requires interactants to suspend precisely this knowledge, drawing it closer to a ‘‘pretense awareness context,’’ where ‘‘both interactants are fully aware but pretend not to be’’ (ibid, p. 670) and Zerubavel’s (2006) analysis of the ‘‘open secret,’’ where the continuation of the successful interaction is dependent on interactants mutually constructed avoidance of disclosure. This study thus points toward a class of interactions that was previously left largely overlooked. In these interactions, which may be termed ‘‘suspended interactions,’’ (and of which flirtation is only one case) actors purposely manage different interactional frames (Goffman, 1974) simultaneously, leaving different unfoldings of the situation potentially open. In addition to flirtation, I argue that this class of social interactions includes two sub-sets: (a) specialized social contexts where abeyance is a pragmatic goal in itself. Such interactions include, for example, the first stages of interaction with a possible in-group member, ‘‘small talk,’’ or the suspension of judgment in formal and informal settings and (b) stages of everyday interactions where a frame shift is contemplated and tested by interactants but not actualized for various reasons, such as fear of failure or the lure of ambiguity itself.

METHODOLOGY To analyze the interactional structure of flirtation, I have compiled fieldnotes of occurrences of flirtatious interactions in public spaces over a course of 14 months between 2006 and 2007.1 This methodology was chosen after a pilot study made it clear that flirtatious interactions were so fleeting that any study of a specific site – such as a ‘‘pick-up’’ bar – would not enable me to focus on flirtations as they interactionally unfold. Fieldnotes described not only the contents of talk, but also embodied aspects of the interaction – how interactants positioned themselves, looked at each others, or touched. I collected over 65 observations, out of which 15 were collected

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in bars, 32 in cafe´s, and approximately 17 in other places – such as cafeterias and common-rooms in a large university. This study design thus puts two important limitations on the ability to claim these interactions to be generally representative both in cultural and gender terms: the flirtations were mostly recorded in the United States, and except for two, were performed by man–woman dyads. After (and during) the collection of cases, I coded the data for emerging analytical themes (Strauss, 1987; Charmaz, 2006). After the temporal structure of flirtation emerged as a central theme, I used precepts developed by Analytic Induction, as I attempted to reach a fit between the emerging theorization and empirical findings, trying to find the ‘‘odd case’’ at every turn (Katz, 2001). I have proceeded to shape and reshape the categories used in this study, and continually attempted to find cases which would not fit with the emerging framework, until a point of saturation was reached, and further honing the categories was redundant.

TEMPORALITY AND THE STRUCTURE OF FLIRTATION Flirtation seems to have been one of the first micro-interactions to be given formal analysis. Simmel’s (1984 [1911]) essay on flirtation is a widely read classic of the formal structure of gender and desire. Analyzing flirtation through a neo-Kantian philosophy of desire, he defines it as ‘‘the ability and inability to acquire something’’ (Simmel, 1984, p. 134).2 Thus, for Simmel, this duality of flirtation means that it is a game of possibilities. The woman (who, for Simmel, is almost always the one who flirts) plays with the possibility of her acquiescence to men’s desire. She does not take a firm stand, but rather plays a subtle game of ‘‘double entendre,’’ captured physically by the coquettish turn of the head that simultaneously signifies love and indifference. Through the spatial metaphor of ‘‘distances of desire’’ central to Simmel’s sociology of form, he then conceives of flirtation to be a willful decision not to decide – a form which is both pregnant with potentiality and freedom. This emphasis on desire has resulted in moving the study of flirtation from the realm of sociology to that of literature (Kaye, 2002; Miller, 2003; Throsby, 2004), psychology (Adams, 1994) and later on linguistics (e.g. Egland, Spitzberg, & Zormeier, 1996). The study of flirtation took on questions of sublimation, desire, and language, whereas the social form

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of flirtation was abandoned. Simmel remained a heuristic and stylistic point of reference, but his sociological analysis was not further developed. In what follows, I show how extending Simmel’s metaphor of space and distance, as well as his psychological–philosophical language of desire, and focusing on an analysis of interaction and time, provides an understanding of how flirtation is managed and maintained in everyday interactions. Flirtation is usually seen as a sexual advance, defined in such ways as ‘‘playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest’’ (Princeton Wordnet, 2009). In a well-defined interaction, a flirtation is seen as the process of change to a sexual relationship. To formalize matters, if a and b are connected to each other in a professional relationship, and a starts shifting the interaction to a sexual tenor, the flirtation stage would consist of the shifting of the relation between interaction frame A (say, a professional framing of the relationship as a waiter–customer interaction) to interaction frame B – a sexual interaction. An implicit part of this definition includes a change of the interaction-roles taken by interactants, such that the roles of both interactants in interaction A are different in interaction B (e.g. from a waiter–customer interaction to a lover–lover interaction). This definition of flirtation can be written down as the middle stage in the following interaction sequence: Non-intimate interaction frame A with interactant roles a-b- Flirtation (reframing)intimate interaction frame B with interactant roles c-d.

What this formalization highlights is that flirting is never conceived as the actualization of the reframing (i.e., the sexual or intimate interaction itself) but only as the shifting, intermediate stage. When the transformation of the relationship is actualized into an intimate relationship, it ceases to be considered as part of the flirtation. A second structural element of this initial sequence, which is made more apparent by formalization, is that the flirtation interaction may exist without actually leading to the third and final stage of interaction. What must appear is the future possibility of this change, which frames the flirtation as a possible leading stage to a different, more intimate interaction. Thus, on many occasions (if not most of them) the process might never be completed, the definition never actually changed: as one interlocutor told me, ‘‘I go with my wife to parties sometimes, and we know that when we are there it is ok to flirt. We flirt, but we go home together.’’ In fact, to be recognized as flirtation, the interaction must not be actualized, as the second of actualization ends the flirtation. To take a wellknown interaction pattern, the second that a woman asks a man out for a

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date, the flirtatious interaction is altered. Both if she is rejected or if the offer is taken on, the definition of the interaction has been irreparably changed.3 In temporal terms, the flirtation can be thus seen to have a very specific kind of ‘‘future orientation’’ built into it, which implies the possibility of a future, but not its actualization. Although in many interactional sequences, actors implement a set of ‘‘actualization practices’’ – pragmatic practices that signify the passage from one set of roles and socially legitimate possibilities of action to another – interactants in flirtation avoid exactly those possibilities. It is this avoidance that makes flirtation not only a ‘‘definition of the situation’’ in itself, but also a projection of a possible future, and a calibration of the present in terms of this possible, potential future – an interaction which is, in terms of the future project, locked ‘‘betwixt and between’’ (Turner, 1969), suspended in mundane liminality. Positing flirtation as a liminal interaction should not be misconstrued as claiming that flirtation is not an interaction in its own right, that it is only an interactional bridge connecting well-defined interactions, rather than being a distinctive interaction defined in its own right. And yet flirtation is an interaction which is engaged and disengaged, which is tied to its own way of being and becoming. Perhaps paradoxically, flirtation actually is a wellbounded interaction, defined exactly through the maintenance and management of a specific form of temporal liminality. This liminality, in turn, can be specified by the following interrelated characteristics. First, the future interaction role-set is uncertain and depends on both parties’ continued interactional efforts. Second, the change in interaction – if one does indeed occur – is not fixed to a definite point, but is rather elusive and vague. Thus, the difference between flirtation and other changes of interaction frames which necessitate an actualized and nonreversible role change is in the openness and ambiguity inherent in the flirtatious interaction. The girl asking somebody out on a date is performing an actualization practice. When approaching the other she knows that a variant of two possibilities is in order. Either the other accepts the advance, or he rejects it. Though negative responses are often prefaced with an apology and an explanation (Jefferson, 1980), a rejection tends to irrevocably change the relationship if not terminate it, whereas an acceptance will change the relationship into a ‘‘dating’’ relationship. However, in flirtation, this actualizing practice is suspended, and the interaction can continue almost indefinitely in this stage. The puzzle then becomes, how is flirtation achieved? How do interactants manage an interaction where the actualization practice has not been done, but that simultaneously achieves the liminality of flirtation?

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These questions require, in turn, a shift from the analysis of flirtation in relation to its effect on a future change in the interaction structures, to a consideration of the interactional structure of flirtation itself. To return to the concept of liminality, it seems that flirtation can be thus defined as a type of mundane ritual, following the same general structure as the initiation ceremonies depicted by van Gennep (1960) and later by Turner (1969). In both formulations there is a previous interactional role-set, and a later one, and in both the focus is on the middle stage which is perceived as liminal. For Turner, one of the distinct and most important characteristics of liminality is the suspension of hierarchy between two states of structure – the realm of ‘‘communitas’’ is opened by a seemingly ‘‘empty’’ and anarchic realm of antistructure (Turner, 1969). This effect, in Simmel’s words, is that of an ‘‘enticing gamble’’ (Simmel, 1984, p. 143), where both potentiality and freedom are experienced and played at. Since flirtation is a future-oriented interaction in which the future is not clearly defined, flirtation colors the whole interaction in a structure of future possibility. Possibility is, admittedly, an ill-defined and tricky concept. However, here I mean by it simply an interaction in which the future roles of interactants are not actualized. This aspect of possibility structure in the flirtation interaction thus means that the third stage, that of the shift, is not necessary for a successful flirtation interaction. Rather, a successful, or ‘‘felicitous,’’ flirtation is one in which this future possibility is referred to in the interaction without ever materializing and taking over the original framing of the interaction. Thus, what is necessary for a successful flirtation is the mere possibility of this vague future interaction, the raising of the future possibility in the present, and not its actual transformation. To use the theoretical frame I have developed earlier, flirtation is an interaction defined as one in which a change of frames is played at, but where actualization practices are avoided. The question then becomes a practical one, concerned with the way in which this kind of interaction is managed without performing actualization practices. How do the interactants know that they are engaged in flirtation, without actually moving away from their previous role set within interaction? To answer this question, I will draw on a few examples from my field-notes: (1) About 1:00 PM. Two people, a Brunette woman, in her early 20s and a young blonde man, about the same age, are sitting in a cafe´. They sit at a table, in front of each other, but a little distant, the guy is leaning backwards. They first talk about work, talking about other people in their work environment. The cafe´ has many people coming for their lunch break from surrounding businesses, and they seem to be co-workers. The

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IDDO TAVORY woman says something about how cold it was the past few days. They start talking about the weather. The man leans a little forwards, looking at the girl ‘‘the nights here are the real problem’’ the girl says ‘‘yea’’. He continues, ‘‘it’s nice to go dating in the winter, you get to cuddle up.’’ The guy says it in a softer voice, a bit quieter than the preceding talk. The girl says ‘‘didn’t have that for a while y’’ The conversation turns to someone at work, now talking about his sexual exploits.

What can be gleaned through this example is the way in which the embodied positioning of the actors play a role within the interaction. When the man leans forward toward the woman, and says that ‘‘it’s nice to go dating,’’ the flirtation is apparent both in the way he leans toward the woman and in the way his tone softens. The gaze, roaming and not making extended eye contact before, is suddenly fixed on his ‘‘partner.’’ In one sentence, he changes the interaction into a flirt. Looking at the practices themselves it seems that the bodily alignment, the tone of voice, and even the words being said, are actually practiced within intimate relationships, rather than in a co-worker interaction frame. Thus, when the topic of conversation changes, but especially in the way bodies are situated toward each other, the practices are taken from the possible future of intimate interaction. Without actualizing a change in the interaction frame, the parties temporarily – and fleetingly – perform practices as if they had already actualized the change, only to revert back to the co-worker interaction frame. To take another example: (2) Jay, a graduate student, is sitting in the graduate lounge. Usually wearing long sleeve shirts, he comes with a short sleeve, making visible a tattoo on his arm. Gloria comes into the lounge, and looking at him, exclaims that she didn’t know he had a tattoo. She comes nearer, and he leans towards her, so she can get a better look at it. ‘‘It is really beautiful’’, she says, and reaches her hand, outlining the tattoo on his arm with her finger, caressing it lightly. After outlining it, she draws back, saying she loves tattoos.

Here, the actual touch, the caressing of the tattoo, is not an interaction done between fellow students. Rather, it is a moment of intimate bodily alignment, which transforms the interaction into the possible future of an intimate interaction. Yet, without breaching the interaction with an actualization practice that would irreversibly change the interaction, the interaction is suspended between the past–present interaction frame (the previous definition of the relationship – here, of fellow students) and the future–present (the potential future possibility – here, the intimate interaction). The way this suspension is done, however, is through performing practices from both sides of the temporal divide, being in both the past–present and the future–present at the very same time.

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Thus, in the flirtation interaction the previous roles are kept as a frame of interaction, whereas practices from a tentative–future interaction are practiced without ever taking over the interaction completely. Put in this way, the flirtation can be seen as a dual interaction occurring at the same time: one which is past–present oriented, and the other future–present oriented, where practices from the potential future are incorporated into the present. In example (1) earlier, the two interactants do not actually change their frame of interaction, they remain co-workers, not lovers. However, practices from a possible future intimate interaction are inserted into this interaction: the proximity of bodies, the lowering of tone, the sexual innuendo and the choice of topic. Notice also, that although flirtation seems to be over after this brief exchange, the topic of conversation turns back to work, but now to sexual encounters in the workplace – and in a sense continues the flirt (see also, Osella & Osella, 1998). This duality of interaction roles serves to destabilize the roles of interactants past–present roles by practicing the possibility of different roles in the future. In the earlier example, both the interactant roles are destabilized. Should the woman agree to redefine the interaction as flirtatious, she has now, besides the interaction role of co-worker, a new interaction role, that of an interactant in an amorous relationship – if only for a fleeting moment. The role of co-worker is rendered temporarily irrelevant, destabilizing the present role of the co-worker, though without erasing it. Playing along with the flirtation, the co-workers do not break the boundaries of the flirtation by making an actualization move such as going out or having any sort of physical contact, which might irretrievable change their roles as co-workers. The co-workers continue the co-worker interaction, but can also transcend their role in the interaction by raising sexually related issues, or even by aligning their body language in ways that would seem inappropriate in a co-workers interaction. Similarly, in the interaction brought at the introduction to this chapter, the flirtation is constructed through the tension between a ‘‘polite’’ conversation, and the physical contact between the interactants. Although the conversation itself revolves around a mundane topic, the simultaneous touch destabilizes it, introducing a different frame of interaction. This duality can also be manifested in one of the characteristics most commonly attributed to flirtation (Simmel, 1984), the ‘‘Double entendre’’: (3) At a bar, a group of friends are sitting around the table, chatting. One of the women, in her late 20s, sits with a partner, and is talking to another man, who is sitting next to her partner. During the conversation, her partner gets up and walks away to the bathroom. She moves to the chair to her left, so that she now sits next to the man she

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IDDO TAVORY talked to. He laughs and says, ‘‘Seems like we are playing musical chairs.’’ She fixes her eyes on his, and retorts, ‘‘My very favorite game.’’ The man mumbles something inarticulate, and turns his gaze to another friend at his other side.

Here, the woman performs the flirtation by echoing the sequence started by the man she is talking to. But where the man seems to be referring to a spatial movement, the way she repeats his simile takes him unaware. By fixing her eyes on him and changing the tenor of the statement, it becomes unclear if the ‘‘musical chairs’’ refer to the actual shift in seating arrangement or a much more radical one, that of partners. Thus, the double entendre allows for the same interactional point to belong to two time frames at once, building ambiguity into the moment. But the reaction of the man in the earlier example stresses another element of the flirtatious interaction – it is a joint project, simultaneously requiring the feigned ignorance and cooperation of both interactants. In Glaser and Strauss’ (1964) terms, flirtation can be thus analyzed as a specific kind of ‘‘pretense awareness context.’’ But where the ‘‘pretense’’ context in Glaser and Strauss’ work refers to information-management where both interactants ‘‘pretend not to know,’’ in flirtation, the pretense refers to actors continued management of suspension and interactional ambiguity. This also means that if one of the interactants does not want to, or cannot, enter the flirtation interaction attempted by the other, he or she can ignore the adumbration of different future roles. Thus, the man in the earlier example does it, perhaps clumsily, by abruptly shifting his attention to another person. In another example, a waitress neatly rejects a flirtatious interaction started by a client: (4) A man in his early 30s is sitting at the table of the restaurant, dressed casually with jeans and buttoned white shirt he is working on his laptop. The waitress approaches him smiling and says hello (probably a regular). He asks the waitress ‘‘had a good Valentine’s?’’ She pauses a second, then says ‘‘yes, I went out with my boyfriend.’’ The man says ‘‘oh, that’s nice,’’ and asks for a coffee.

Here, it seems that the customer starts flirting with the waitress, using his superficial acquaintance as a regular customer, he broaches a topic that is completely irrelevant to the waiter–customer relationship, and that has both a personal and romantic undertones. Not discouraging the advance in any explicit manner, the waitress answers his advance by telling him that she indeed had a happy Valentine’s, with her boyfriend. Explicitly continuing the interaction in a completely coherent manner, she implicitly nips the budding flirt, and reassumes her role as waitress. The reaction of the customer is telling, prefacing his response with a change-of-state ‘‘oh’’ token

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(Heritage, 1984), he signifies that new information was added to the conversation, changing it, and restoring the previous interaction roles of waitress and customer. The way flirtation is structured, borrowing practices from a possible future interaction without actually going through an actualization practice, allows the waitress to restore the situation without explicitly rejecting the man, or creating any sort of awkward social scene. However, this may not always be the case. As anthropologists such as Yelvington (1996, 1999) have demonstrated, flirtation can become a thin veneer which hides sexual harassment. Indeed, it is exactly the way in which the sexualized interaction is not actualized, which makes it so hard to counter such flirtations, and women (Yelvington, 1999) may sometimes only acquiesce to flirtation, as they fear that any resistance will only result in an escalation of the harassment. Not having any clear actualization practice to complain against, the structure of flirtation may actually make it much harder to file against the advances of the other party. And yet, although flirtation entails obvious risks – loss of face, and the much more disturbing power structures it might imply – it is also seen as an enticing possibility by many. But why is the flirting interaction entered into in the first place? Why not propel interactions into the future from one interaction role frame to another? One answer is the one offered by Simmel (1984), claiming that the flirtation is a way to increase freedom. Before taking the choice, when different options are still open to the flirting interactants, they feel that a world of possibilities lies in front of them. This is also why women are more prone to flirt in Simmels’ analysis: not having much power once the situation is well defined, they extend the period of uncertainty, where they still have the potential power to define the situation. In temporal terms, in the flirtation interaction, goals and roles are not stated clearly, the interaction roles are not actually changed, but only hinted at, not proceeding to an actualization practice. Thus, the flirtation can be seen as a prelude, a relatively safe way of checking the grounds before an actual change of interaction roles is attempted. If the frame change of interaction is seen by one of the parties as tenuous, she can begin it by a flirtation, which operates as a way to save face, in the occurrence of a rejection of the future interaction frame. However, many flirtations are never actualized, nor meant to be actualized by the flirting parties. Thus, there is a second, related motive to enter into the flirting interaction. As I argued earlier, the past–present interaction roles of interactants are destabilized in flirtation, a destabilization that can be seen in itself as an enticing possibility. This future orientation of the interaction has

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much in common with Bergson’s (2001 [1889]) differentiation between future and past orientations. In ‘‘Time and Free Will,’’ Bergson analyzes aesthetics, excitement and anticipation as related concepts which are tied to a future possibility, a future which is pregnant with possibilities and therefore enticing, as against a past orientation which is seen as a tethering and restraining the subject. Thus, the future, in its vagueness, is seen as a site of potentialities, where the subjects’ freedom is manifested. Seen from this angle, flirtation is a way of aesthetisizing relationships by making them pregnant with potentials and possibilities which a well-defined interaction lacks, a way to transcend the scripts of institutionalized interaction by bringing in an undefined future into a narrowly defined present. Through the avoidance of actualizations practices and the simultaneous insertion of practices from a possible future into the present situation, the aesthetics of the future can be experienced in the present interaction – the structure of the future tinting the present with potentialities.

DISCUSSION Based on ethnographic observations in public places, this chapter charted the ways in which flirtation is performed. Though Simmel (1984) understood flirtation as bound by structures of distance and desire, I argue that the ways in which actors flirt can be better described through an analysis of the management of temporality. Seen as a liminal stage between a nonsexualized and a sexualized interaction, flirtation was described as an interaction where both practices relevant to a current role-set and a possible-future one are simultaneously presented. Thus, elements such as bodily alignment, tone of voice and even occasional touch of flirting interactants are borrowed from a possible future, in which they are already engaged in a sexualized or intimate encounter, whereas other aspects of the same interaction remain in the modality of the past–present. Within the flirtatious interaction certain boundaries cannot be crossed. Practices that would irrevocably shift the situation: a straight-out invitation, extended bodily contact, etc., are avoided. Instead, without actualizing the change in interaction, the flirting interactants blend the present with the possible future, destabilizing and changing the interaction to create an interactional space pregnant with possibilities and potential – options which may be more enticing for interactants than an actualized definition of the situation. This co-presence of different practices is achieved through a number of ways: changes in the positioning and alignment of bodies, double-entendres

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and topical shifts in the situation. Through these interactional strategies, and careful not to inadvertently actualize a well-defined interactional frame, interactants construct the interactional moment as ambiguous and full of possibilities. There are a few fronts in which this chapter calls for further research – both specific to the question of flirtation, and pertaining to a more general class of similar interactions. First, this analysis focused on heteronormative– Western interactions. Further studies could chart the ways in which different social groups and societies perform flirtation. Such research can examine both the scope of the flirtation form and delineate the specific – culturally bound – actualization practices that are avoided in flirtation. As such, the analysis of flirtation may open a vista of comparative research of the moments where interactions are irrevocably changed. However, the case of flirtation is but one of a more general class of social interactions, a class that may be termed ‘‘suspended interactions.’’ In these interactional sequences, interactants purposely suspend the actualization of one specific future, keeping different potential unfoldings open and suspending both relatively narrowly circumscribed patterns of action until some specified or unspecified future date (which may or may not come). This general class of interactions can be further broken down to two subsets: one in which the suspension is built into a sequence of usually welldefined interactions and relationships, and another in which the suspension of the potential future is a regular and defining characteristic of the interaction. The first category of interaction includes social contexts where ambiguity and the co-existence of practices from different role-sets appear in the interstices of other forms of interaction. Thus, in the biography of most relations, shifts in interactional roles are often attempted and enacted. Whether between lovers, in the workplace, or among acquaintances, relationships are marked by episodic entrance into such suspended interactions. As in flirtation, this ambiguity in the midst of well-defined relationships, can be entered either to test the grounds for a future framechange desired by one of the parties, or for the sake of suspension and ambiguity themselves – used to aestheticize relationships by injecting them with uncertainty (Bergson, 2001). Yet suspension of potential futures is a structural aim and defining characteristic of some interactions. These include, among others: (a) representative interactions, where the parties interacting are doing so as delegates or representatives of others who are not present in the face-to-face interaction, and thus must keep as many future possibilities open for the

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consideration of others (e.g. the diplomatic tendency to use opaque and ambiguous terms); (b) ‘‘small talk,’’ where interactants avoid speaking about certain matters by centering the conversation on trivialities; (c) institutionalized suspensions of judgments, such as that performed by a judge refraining from making a final decision on a case while awaiting information on the defendants’ conduct. An especially relevant ‘‘suspended interaction,’’ is a common feature in the practice of ethnography, where the involvement of the researcher and her position in the community is seldom defined in hard and fast ways. Not able to either be personally detached from the members in the field or ‘‘go native,’’ the ethnographer and those she researches are constantly engaged in practical negotiations, where different identities and practices are constantly played at without a definite actualization. This maintenance of ambiguity is not only performed by the ethnographer to establish rapport, but often by members in the field. As an example, in an ethnographic project in a Jewish orthodox community in Los Angeles (Tavory, 2007), I have encountered situations where my own position – as an ethnographer on the one hand, and a Jew on the other – was used by members to keep me from stating decisively if I wish to enter the group as a member, or remain an observer: At Rabbi Dagan’s house, as we sit and wait for his wife to return home, he asks if I want him to arrange a marriage match for me. Squirming, I say ‘I don’t knowyI am not sure how religiousy’ He stops me before I complete the word ‘religious.’ ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk about it.’

Sensing that I may distance myself from the community by commenting on my level of religious observance, the rabbi literally stopped me in midsentence, changing the subject. Finishing the sentence would have actualized my position as researcher, formulating my own position vis-a-vis the community. By averting this possibility, the rabbi keeps my position suspended not only in the eyes of the rabbi, but more importantly for the possible newcomer – me. Thus, in suspended interactions, simultaneous and conflicting practices are carefully produced in action. Rather than thinking about these specialized interactions and episodes in the biography of relationships as chaotic and anarchic moments of break and transformation, the study of flirtation may provide clues for their analysis as a social form in itself – an interaction which has its own logic of production, a form which involves the competent production of ambiguity and suspension.

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NOTES 1. Like all studies of interactional forms, if not more generally, this study is locked in a hermeneutic circle of recognition and analysis (Ricoeur, 1979). Thus, to focus on flirtatious interactions, I had to implement my own folk-recognition of the interaction I set to study, which were then analyzed for emerging themes. 2. For Simmel’s philosophical position, see especially book I of ‘‘The philosophy of money’’ (Simmel, 1990 [1900]). 3. Conversation analysis is perhaps the most rigorous (if not the only) area of study that deals directly with such ‘‘actualizations.’’ Thus, to take two examples, Schegloff and Sacks (1973) show how conversation-endings are ‘‘done’’ and ‘‘undone’’ through wordings and silences that signify that the conversation had come to an end. Recently, Beach (1993) showed how frame changes occurs with words such as ‘‘okay,’’ moving the conversation from one topic to another, thrusting it into the future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the following people who suffered to hear or read earlier drafts of this chapter, and offered invaluable comments: Kathy Charmaz, Michael Flaherty, Lior Gelernter, Shawn Halbert, Eva Jablonka, Jack Katz, Lori Kendall, Steve Sortijas, Kristin Surak, Stefan Timmermans, Ana Villareal and Amit Zoref. Lonnie Athens made critical comments on an earlier draft. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Mel Pollner, who helped me throughout this project. I can only hope that fragments of his humor and penetration somehow made their way into this chapter.

REFERENCES Adams, P. (1994). On flirtation. London: Faber. Beach, W. A. (1993). Transitional regularities for causal ‘‘okay’’ usages. Journal of Pragmatics, 19(4), 325–352. Bergson, H. (2001 [1889]). Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness. New York: Dover Publications. Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Davis, F. (1959). The cabdriver and his fare: Facets of a fleeting relationship. American Journal of Sociology, 65(2), 158–165. Davis, F. (1961). Deviance disavowal: The management of strained interaction by the visibly handicapped. Social Problems, 9, 120–132. Egland, K. I., Spitzberg, B. H., & Zormeier, M. M. (1996). Flirtation and conversational competence in cross-sex platonic and romantic relationships. Communication Reports, 9(2), 106–117, California State University.

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Garfinkel, H. (1956). Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology, 61(5), 420–424. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1964). Awareness contexts and social interaction. American Sociological Review, 29(5), 669–679. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1965). Awareness of dying. New York: Aldine. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York: Doubleday Anchor. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heritage, J. (1984). A change of State Token and aspects of its sequential placement. In: J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jefferson, G. (1980). On ‘trouble-premonitory’ response to inquiry. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 153–185. Katz, J. (1996). Families and funny mirrors: A study of the social construction and personal embodiment of humor. American Journal of Sociology, 101(5), 1194–1237. Katz, J. (2001). Analytic induction. In: N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 480–484). Oxford: Elsevier. Kaye, R. A. (2002). The flirt’s tragedy: Desire without end in Victorian and Edwardian fiction. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Miller, D. (2003). To seduce or to flirt, that is the question. Time & Society, 12(3), 281–291. Musil, R. (1995 [1952]). The man without qualities. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Osella, C., & Osella, F. (1998). Friendship and flirting: Micro-politics in Kerala, South India. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4, 189–206. Princeton Wordnet. (2009). Flirtation. Available at http://wordnet.princeton.edu Ricoeur, P. (1979). The model of the text: Meaningful action considered as text. In: P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan (Eds), Interpretive social science (pp. 73–101). Berkeley: University of California Press. Schegloff, E. A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotia, VIII(4), 289–327. Simmel, G. (1971). Georg simmel on individuality and social forms. In: D. N. Levine (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Simmel, G. (1984 [1911]). Georg simmel: On women, sexuality, and love (pp. 133–152). Translated by Guy Oakes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Simmel, G. (1990[1900]). The philosophy of money. London: Routledge. Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tavory, I. (2007). Seeing religiosity: Embodied distinctions in a Jewish orthodox community. Paper presented at the Stonybrook Ethnography Conference, New York, March. Throsby, C. (2004). Romanticism and flirtation. Literature Compass Online, 1. Turner, V. W. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co. Van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage. Translated by Monica Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press. Yelvington, K. A. (1996). Flirting in the factory. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 313–333. Yelvington, K. A. (1999). Power/flirting. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5(3), 457–459. Zerubavel, E. (2006). The elephant in the room: Silence and denial in everyday life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

BECOMING A SOCIOLOGIST: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY Virginia Olesen I get an e mail from Lonnie Athen: ‘‘As the editor of the SSI ‘Blue Ribbon Paper’ series, I invite you to submit a paper addressing the above Question (‘How I Became a Sociologists’). I say yes. On November l7 he sends more details: ‘We are particularly interested in the experiences that lead to choice of careers and particular sociological views and interests.’’

Though flattered, I am also anxious. This is a step into my past, present and future fraught with difficulties: Which stories to tell? Which to gloss? Which to forget? What format: Epistolary? Theatrical? Novelistic? Research report? (Chase, 2005). Moreover, I have just moved into a retirement community after 30 years in a wonderful home, a shift entailing considerable emotional and physical demands. Do I have the mental energy to undertake such an archeological dig? In keeping with Lonnie’s invitation to write how I became a sociologist and how my interests developed, I here foreground those and pay less attention to other parts of myself, though I fully recognize that these are intertwined. Following Mead (1934) and; Athens (1994), I view the self as a shifting composite of different and mostly unified selves. The unwieldy, rich sociological stories demand recounting all by themselves. These stories constitute a series of transformations in my sociological self, transformations deriving from interactions1 and the emergence and unfolding of self in social and cultural epochs and in institutions where we fashion our lives and are fashioned (Strauss, 1993; Harding, 2007):

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 75–94 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033008

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VIRGINIA OLESEN Individuals, the history that makes them, and the history they make are unique not because they emerge at particular moments because they are crafted in a specific fashion, but because they are the outcome of a unique process, itself a product of individual action and social structure. (Fenstermaker, 1997, pp. 209–210)

That said, we can now begin the journey that I followed in becoming a sociologist, examining various phases, cycles and turning points, and bearing in mind that ‘‘Experience is at once already an interpretation and in need of interpretation’’ (Scott, 1991, p. 779).

BEGINNINGS: THE GREAT DEPRESSION, WORLD WAR II Growing up in a small (l,000) Nevada town in the l930s and 1940s, I acquired a neophyte’s sociological eye and sensibility, though, of course, not an analytical framework from which to make sense of that social world. The everyday life in that little town encouraged perception of subtle, but nevertheless very sharp social, cultural, economic, racial, gender, and class differences among its residents. In that milieu at the height or the depth of The Great Depression in 1931 when I was six and my only sister four, my father’s business failed, our family lost our home and my mother, thanks to the Works Progress Administration (WPA), became the breadwinner, drawing on her training as an elementary school teacher. Little wonder then, that her mantra, as we proceeded through the local schools, was ‘‘You have to be able to earn your own living when you grow up.’’ With those words ringing in our ears, my sister and I went in the 1940s to the University of Nevada in Reno 100 miles away. At that time, it was not only the lone campus of the state university, which expanded later to Las Vegas, but was also the only institution of higher education in the entire state. Back then, very few high school graduates went on to university. If it were not for my mother’s hard work and vision, we could never have gone to college. Entering the university, I dreamed of a career in the State Department, so signed on for majors in history and English literature. Sociology courses, reputedly boring, could not compete in my mind with the courses that I was taking in my two majors. My interest in journalism was steadily growing. Not only was journalism stimulating, but it held the promise of ‘‘being able to earn your own living.’’ But, when graduation time came in June 1947, I did not have a job. I passed the hot, Nevada summer days in a stew of anxiety worrying about if and where I could find work. Finally in August, I got a job

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as the assistant editor on a small weekly newspaper published on the Mare Island, California, shipyard for Navy personnel, residents, civilian workers and towns people. I think my mother breathed a deep sigh of relief. I know I did.

POST–WORLD WAR II AND THE 1950S If I thought Lovelock highly stratified, Mare Island was in another league. The shipyard, a venerable institution dating to the Civil War, employed naval personnel from seamen to admirals as well as a highly differentiated civilian work force. Status consciousness was more pervasive than anything that I had experienced either in my hometown or at the University of Nevada. Beyond the daily experience of stratification in its various versions and forms, being a journalist in that setting brought me face-to-face with and plunged me into bureaucracy in ways I had never known. This was not the romantic, journalistic adventure I had envisioned on graduation, but a careful treading of acceptable paths to find or create interesting stories that could be published. That was not hard to do. The great manufacturing ‘‘shops’’, as they were called, each devoted to specialties that produced the submarines for which Mare Island was famous, were dramatic locales with abundant, compelling human stories. I was doing ethnography, but did not know it. It was a comfortable life: a good job with a good salary, particularly after being promoted as editor. I might well have stayed on, but after seven years the journalistic work had become too routine for me: stories that I wrote one year sounded similar to those that I had written in previous ones, so what was once a challenge for me, no longer excited me. When my journalism professor at Nevada, Alfred Higginbotham, wrote me about a tuition fellowship to the University of Chicago to study mass communication for a master’s degree in an interdisciplinary program, I jumped at the opportunity. I resigned from my position as editor, packed my bags, and drove across the country alone to Chicago.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: A MAJOR TURNING POINT I still vividly recall the excitement of being at the University of Chicago in the mid-l950s. It was an unending feast of delights: one stimulating class after another; memorable meal time talk at the dorm where I lived; daily, lively contacts with graduate students in archeology, history, anthropology,

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sociology, geography, literature, and interaction with great Chicago faculty: Everett Hughes, Lloyd Warner, Sol Tax, and Robert Redfield. This heady mix proved fertile ground for the first stirrings of a sociological self, quite unformed and still in the shadow of my journalistic self. In particular, two encounters started me on my way in becoming a sociologist, Anselm Strauss’ course in Sociological Social Psychology and working in David Riesman’s office. Strauss’ course was the first sociology course that I had taken, one that I recall with pleasure still to this day more than 50 years later. Anselm would come into class, ascend the lecturer’s platform and in his soft voice talk of Mead and symbolic interactionism. I quickly realized I had to sit in the front row or miss the exciting ideas he presented. Symbolic Interactionism (SI) literally turned the lights on. I found a framework for the Nevada and Mare Island experiences and much more. I landed in Riesman’s office on loan from the University Hospital clerical pool where I worked at a typing job to earn money to replace my diminishing savings. There I had extensive contact with Riesman, a generous, thoughtful supervisor-mentor. His exciting class on popular culture led me to work on two research projects, one the study of leisure then underway under his direction, and the other, a study of lyrics of popular music being done by Don Horton. These two projects were my first encounters with sociological research, albeit at a very humble level. When the time came to consider what to do after Chicago, however, I did not see myself as a sociologist. I did my master’s thesis on children’s use of television. I still entertained notions of working in mass communications, an upgraded version of my undergraduate dreams of being a journalist, but I had little idea of how to go about getting a job in that field. While on my way to the library one day in my second and final year, I noticed by chance a poster for pre-doctoral Ford Foundation Fellowships at Stanford University to study mass communication. That sounded like an exciting opportunity in the field I thought I was still interested in. I received a fellowship and drove back to California in the summer of 1956 leaving the University of Chicago’s gray, majestic Gothic buildings for Stanford’s creamy Spanish colonial architecture.

ANOTHER TURNING POINT: THE STEP TO SOCIOLOGY Once at Stanford, I found that study of mass communication was a grave disappointment. I could never re-ignite the spark of intellectual excitement

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that I had earlier felt at Chicago, except with graduate student friends in English, sociology, and history. It did not help that the political climate at Stanford was for the most part quite conservative: when I wore an Adlai Stevenson button in the dining hall, one server accused me, ‘‘You’re a Commie!’’ Moreover, I did not perform well in the classes which held little interest for me. Needless to say, I slept poorly, spending many nights worrying about how to rescue my career, stay in graduate school and finish with a marketable degree. Finally, I gathered my abundant Chicago sociology credits and transferred to Stanford’s Department of Sociology. There I felt at home. In the flexible but demanding, stimulating and highly informative, well rounded and enriching program, I regained the excitement I had known earlier, though there was little discussion of symbolic interactionism. I felt myself growing a sociological self: Richard T. LaPierre’s incisive classical theory classes, Robert Ellis’ offerings on social stratification, Paul Wallin’s impeccable methods seminars, and Edmund Volkart’s social psychology courses, in which he discussed his work on W. I. Thomas. Because the faculty encouraged taking courses in other disciplines, I also studied anthropology with Bernard Siegel, George Spindler, and Gregory Bateson. However, most memorable were Volkart’s pioneering course offerings in medical sociology which were among the first in the country (Bloom, 2002, pp. 133, 138–144, 147). My fellow grad students and I eagerly and enthusiastically took his seminars: he was a very good teacher, supportive and challenging, and conveyed a keen interest in medical sociology. His courses made a lasting impression on me. I began to think of medical sociology as a possible specialty. Everything was going well for me in sociology when I developed an ovarian cyst. I swung between anxiety about potential malignancy, and depression about being forced to end my studies if it were malignant and require lengthy treatment. Fearful, I dilly dallied, but finally went to the excellent Stanford student health services, had surgery and, afterwards, was hospitalized. Fortunately, the cyst was benign, so radiation or chemotherapy were not necessary. With the enthusiasm of one saved from a painful fate, I returned to finish my work on my Ph.D. degree.

INTO THE JOB MARKET Entering the job market in 1959, I had only a few nibbles. Then Anselm Strauss wrote to ask if I would be interested in a position on a research

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project that he was organizing at the School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, which Fred Davis would direct. David Riesman had brought me to Strauss’ attention. It looked very promising, though some fellow students scoffed at work in a school of nursing. Ever the optimist, Volkart, who was a generous and highly supportive mentor, told me: ‘‘You can make of it whatever you want.’’ That was all that I needed to hear. I flew to Chicago for a memorable day long interview with Strauss and Davis and eagerly accepted their offer. I was elated: I was an older graduate (all of 34 which to me now seems very young), and a woman in a thin job market. There was no affirmative action in those days. I also felt very lucky: this was not only a good chance for me to get in on the ground floor of medical sociology, which at that time was not a widely recognized subfield of sociology, but also to work with Chicago interactionists. It did not hurt that the position was in San Francisco. We were all in transition: Strauss moving from Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago; Davis, from the Polio Foundation in New York City and I, from graduate school. I was by now seeing myself as a sociologist, talking and thinking like a sociologist. My journalistic self now had almost faded away completely. The intertwining of our lives was concurrent with an institutional transition that would provide opportunities and shape our selves and biographies for decades even as we helped shape the institution. A remarkable, far sighted nurse educator, Helen Nahm, who held a doctorate in psychology from the University of Minnesota, had just become dean at the UCSF School of Nursing. Nahm, who was determined to upgrade baccalaurate nursing education by the introduction of the social sciences and research training, learned of Strauss from Everett Hughes. She recruited Strauss to UCSF to lead this effort. The vehicle which was to provide social scientists to work with nurse faculty at the UCSF school, was a three year NIMH grant to do an ethnographic study on how students become nurses. Nahm and Strauss, now on the UCSF faculty, had written the grant. Later, Elvi Whittaker, an Estonian-Canadian from the University of British Columbia, who had studied nurses, joined the project team.

UCSF: CONTEXTS OF BECOMING Development of a sociological identity is not predicated solely on contacts with other sociologists. This process implicates other actors, sometimes quite significantly, as I found at UCSF. UCSF is not a general campus, but

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a health sciences campus (Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Medicine, and numerous bench scientists). We were usually seen by the other professionals with whom we daily interacted at that resolutely male, pale and medical bastion as a pretty strange bunch of folks. Indeed, we were clearly ‘‘the other.’’ We were often mistaken for social workers or frequently queried, ‘‘What exactly do you do?’’ These sometimes irritating encounters sharpened my views of myself as sociologist, for I had to fully and clearly explain just what I did do. No theoretical flights into the sociological stratosphere here! Just solid, everyday talk about our work and sociology. Not always easy to do. As an antidote, our ethnographic work (Olesen & Whittaker, 1968) immersed us in the students’ worlds – public and private – in ways which harked back to the Chicago school of ethnography (Deegan, 2001; Rock, 2001). For the students, we were ‘‘their sociologists,’’ a flattering, but sometimes restrictive attribution. For the faculty in nursing during the three year study, we were colleagues, but not quite, as the uncomfortable wall of the research relationship was always between us.2 In the daily stimulating interactions with Davis and Whittaker, my symbolic interactionist’s selves emerged in discussions about the fieldwork, its problems and promising conceptual issues. Strauss occasionally joined us, but was busy, with Barney Glaser, with their studies of dying patients and their development of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Over the years, the issue of ‘‘otherness’’ faded somewhat. More social scientists, notably anthropologists and psychologists made their way on campus, so we were no longer so unusual. We gradually become players in Academic Senate and campus politics, a way to be visible as sociologists, though sometimes with challenging difficulties, as I found on the UCSF Institutional Review Board (the human subjects committee) where for several years I was the only woman and the only social scientist. These years sorely tested me. The physicians and bench scientists who dominated the committee disdained qualitative social science research and deemed it ‘‘soft’’ and ‘‘unscientific.’’ Since many of the nursing research projects under review utilized qualitative approaches, I often engaged in fiery exchanges to defend and explain this style of work, sometimes successful, often times not, and always wrenching from my viewpoint as a sociologist. In 1968, thanks to Strauss’ leadership, skillful negotiating and the good will he had built in the School of Nursing, we successfully maneuvered our way through campus politics and university bureaucracies to establish a doctoral program in sociology.3 That gave us recognizable and creditable academic footing at the university. When the School of Nursing

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departmentalized in 1972, we became the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. We were now a structural unit in the university with legitimate claims on its resources, and no longer merely a group of social scientists in someone else’s department. I served as the first chair, but after three years stepped down to help with care giving for my terminally ill mother. I also realized that university administration, even in such a small department and school, was not my forte and that I had better stick to research and teaching. Equally critical, earlier in l966, I was moved from a research grant position to a tenure track appointment, one of the last to become available at UCSF before the hard times of the Reagan years in California. In l967, I earned tenure. These structural changes were personally satisfying and professionally reassuring: I had an institutional, as well as disciplinary base, for my sociological self. For the first time in my academic life, I felt anchored. The institution and I had both changed (Harding, 2007).

BEYOND UCSF Though our research and interactions with social science and nursing colleagues at UCSF were stimulating, it nevertheless lacked the intellectual vivacity of a general campus. Consequently, even before getting tenure and certainly after, meetings and conferences in sociology and other disciplines became and continued to be important sources of new, stimulating ideas needed for the growth of my sociological self (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000). I eagerly participated in ASA’s medical sociology section, which I chaired in 1978 and in the bi-annual International Social Science and Medicine meetings. These activities enlarged my views of medical sociology, where my work fit and where significant differences lay. From the Social Science and Medicine (SSM) meetings life-long contacts came with British qualitative and medical sociologists whose conceptual sophistication challenged and altered, always for the better, my sociological imagination. The most dramatic non-UCSF educational context that I experienced was at the American University in Cairo. I spent five months there in 1976 to help my colleague and friend, Cynthia Nelson, an anthropologist, establish a medical sociology/anthropology program in AUC’s social science curriculum (Nelson & Olesen, 1977). This required working across disciplines, being sensitive to the multiple complexities in Egyptian life (social class, gender, religion, rural/urban, colonial history, and globalization). It was mind

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blowing, but incredibly stimulating. I left Cairo a wiser sociologist and a happy one – I felt that I had accomplished something worthwhile. No account of impact on my sociological self in contexts beyond UCSF would be complete without the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI). At national, international, and regional meetings, SSSI has always been a rich source of enriching, stimulating, and professional and personally rewarding experiences for me. One of the most memorable, still the source of great professional pleasure, was Carl Couch’s comment on meeting me for the first time: ‘‘Olesen, you did a damned good ethnography!’’ (The Silent Dialogue). SSSI also opened new intellectual vistas, which I will discuss later. When the Society gave me the George Herbert Mead Award in 1996, I was deeply touched and honored. The impact of this recognition on me was so great that for a long-time I could scarcely incorporate it into my sociological self. In fact, I sometimes still say to myself, ‘‘Was that really me they gave the George Herbert Mead Award to?’’

Altering Selves: Emergent Interests The Nursing Careers Project, which provided a strong, creative impetus for my sociological evolution, has had a lasting effect on how I approach and think about ethnographic research and sociological inquiry in general. I can imagine few career beginnings where one would be so fortunate. Although I had never done fieldwork, I found that my many years of interviewing and observing people as a journalist proved useful, but analyzing data was a different animal altogether. I found that how one reports a story has important implications for your later analysis. There are no naked facts because observation and theory are combined together in their very description. I learned that how one reports something always is to some degree theoretically driven. Davis’ superb observational, analytic and writing talents, and Whittaker’s supremely subtle thinking helped me learn this lesson and acquire my general analytic skills. My fieldwork experience later brought me an invitation to join an interdisciplinary team that included David Riesman. The team was assembled to do a three-year field work study of competence-based education at various institutions across the country that had tried to make reforms in their educational programs (Grant, 1979, pp. 439–490). Working with an interdisciplinary team, participating in a large scale study and addressing policy issues proved to be a highly demanding, but very stimulating experience for me (Olesen, 1990b, pp. 219–227). Among other

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things, I realized that I could use symbolic interaction and qualitative methods to study policy issues.4 Returning to the Nursing Careers Project, we gathered and analyzed more data as part of a follow-up studies. By the time this project had finally drawn to a close, we had produced a substantial body of publications on professional socialization, emotions, cultural symbols, and women’s roles.5 Did our work make a difference in higher education in nursing? I do not think that even our centerpiece, The Silent Dialogue, influenced policies or practices, perhaps because our findings depicted students as active rather than passive participants in the learning experience, which was in opposition to the then prevailing view, or alternatively because the interest in the field had shifted from broader questions about nursing careers to the narrower question of what the minimal requirements should be for entry level nursing positions. Other consequences of our project made a bigger impact. Paradoxically, the advice that we gave while conducting this project to faculty members and later to graduate students in nursing at UCSF about their research ultimately had a much bigger influence on nursing education and research than our project’s actual findings. In this unanticipated way, we realized Dean Nahm’s vision of a proper nursing education (Olesen, 2007, p. 418). After the nursing career project ended, we did not continue our studies on socialization. Times had changed. Funding for research projects, like the one that we had conducted, had largely dried up. Interest had shifted away from the study of socialization to clinical issues. Qualitative research projects had also fallen out of favor among major granting agencies (Steinmetz, 2005a, 2005b). Practically speaking, the only remaining sources of support for research projects on this topic employing qualitative methods were small grants from university research offices (Davis, Lin, Gan, & Olesen, 1992). Besides, I had grown tired of socialization studies and was looking for fresh research adventures. Remembering my days working in the University of Chicago’s typing pool and my criticisms of sociologists and feminists who focused on women in elite occupations or exotic or deviant pursuits to the exclusion of occupations in which most women were employed, I got a small grant from Eliot Liebow’s Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems in NIMH to study temporary clerical workers. I and a gifted graduate student, Fran Katsuranis, found that these women had exercised far more control over their work environments than we had anticipated. Moreover, their views of themselves were not solely based on work, but also from other activities, such as playing a musical instrument, singing, doing arts and crafts, etc. (Olesen & Katsuranis, 1978). Years later, when Eliot Freidson expressed admiration for our small study, I felt an unseemly surge of

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intellectual, feminist and sociological pride and regretted not pursuing this research further, given what has now happened in the US labor market.

FAILURE AS TURNING POINT Concurrent with these research projects, I had teaching responsibilities, including a required undergraduate social psychology course for student nurses. Modeled after Strauss’ memorable class that I took during my graduate studies at University of Chicago, this class fared well until the early l970s. Then one offering went completely sour. Since I had up until this time regarded myself as a ‘‘good’’ teacher, this was not only a big jolt to me, but also a very unpleasant one. Until this happened, my course evaluations had supported my view of myself as a good teacher, but now something had clearly gone wrong. Nursing my bruised ego and sifting through the ruins, I concluded that deep ethnic, racial, sexual, marital, social class, and educational differences among the students necessitated a radical change in the content of this course. Reluctantly, I abandoned the Chicago influenced social psychology and completely revised the content of the course to focus on the social psychology of women’s health, praying that this would engage the highly diverse students. It did the trick. By moving my feminism from the background to the forefront of myself, I was able to rescue my tattered teaching reputation and restore my self-confidence. This personal transformation involved much more than resuscitating my self confidence and teaching reputation. I had been aware of and sympathetic to the Women’s Movement for some time, but it was this painful incident that finally drew me into it all the way. Other feminists have written about the feelings of togetherness and belonging that the movement evoked in them. I shared that experience. The emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Women’s Health Movement brought new found awareness of belonging and potential to realize social justice for women that I had not previously experienced in the male worlds of sociology and UCSF. Those were exciting days. In those dawning moments of the Women’s Movement, I realized I was onto something important. Like many women, I was angry about the treatment women received. What better place to take action than in the health care system? Though I thought demonstrations, marches and protests of all sorts were critical, and, indeed participated in them, I also believed that some solid knowledge base was necessary if matters were to be changed. Working through contacts I no longer remember, I obtained federal funding for a two-day,

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international research conference at UCSF on women as health care consumers in the new era, the first one in the United States (Olesen, 1975) and one that helped place women’s health issues in the spotlight. I had to work across disciplines and with federal bureaucrats, a new experience that not only refined my interpersonal skills, but also expanded and humbled me as a sociologist. Meanwhile, collaborating with feminist colleagues on our faculty, Lucile Newman and Ellen Lewin, anthropologists, and Sheryl Ruzek, a sociologist, I also organized graduate social science classes on women’s health, including feminist theory, policy, and research. These courses, which vigorously criticized and veered away from conventional medical views about women and their health issues became the ‘‘Women, Health and Healing’’ specialty in the UCSF Graduate Sociology Program.6 Thanks to a three-year grant that Ruzek, Lewin, and I obtained in 1982 from the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education, these new classes also planted the seeds for curricular innovation movement that spread far beyond UCSF campus.7 Adele Clarke, a feminist symbolic interactionist, who was finishing her doctoral work in UCSF’s sociology program, later joined us. Our joint efforts refined conceptualizations of and concerns about women’s health that changed the landscape of this entire field of study.8 My participation in this effort also solidified my identity as a feminist sociologist, sharpening not only my sense of who I was, but also my sense of where and how my research might make a difference in women’s lives.9 Fresh Directions The circuitous route that I traveled in becoming a sociologist took a new and important twist in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Two events precipitated these changes in my sociological self: Norman Denzin’s ‘‘Cultural Studies Panel’’ at the 1988 Mid-West Sociological Association meetings and the 1990 British Medical Sociology Conference. Denzin’s cultural studies session and others like it, such as Howie Becker’s and Michal McCall’s performance piece were so provocative that they challenged the very foundation on which my then sociological self rested (Athens, 1995). Only vaguely aware at the time of the new currents in deconstructionism and postmodernism, I was literally swept away by the presentations that the panel members made. I later wrote: From the podium begin to flow words, ideas, revelations and emotions so daring, so stimulating, so divergent from the usual dessicated presentations that I feel intellectual

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jubilation. What’s been going on? What are these new ideas? Some seem tantalizingly similar to conversations in the long ago days of our ethnographic studies at UCSF. Where do I learn more about this? How does this fit with ‘standard’ sociology? The meetings over, I fly home, a phoenix risen from the ashes of a sociology that seems out of step, out of tune and strangely old fashioned. But is this just trendy? Have I been seduced by the compelling artfulness of the presentations and overlooked the sociology in them? I have no answers, but float, savoring something new and exciting, but, not sure of what it is or, where I could fit. (Olesen, 2001a, pp. 267–268)

The postmodern turn created a huge controversy in sociology. Since this controversy has been amply documented elsewhere, (Rosenau, 1992; Charmaz, 1995; Delamont & Atkinson, 2004), I do not need to recount all the details of it here. Instead, I will limit myself to the impact that this controversy had on me. In retrospect, I was never closely tied to the positivist strands in SI or qualitative sociology. Because of the vestiges of my former romantic journalistic self, I was very open to entertaining and trying out these provocative ideas. Did I go postmodern? I can still recall my revised feminist theory class in which students and I would literally wallow our way through the postmodern/deconstruction mazes. I also asked my students to ‘‘perform’’ their term papers in my social psychology of illness class and in my qualitative feminist research class. From my years of attending Denzin’s stimulating cultural studies panels (Olesen, 2001a, 2001b), talking with my colleague Adele Clarke, who was taking grounded theory around ‘‘the postmodern turn’’ (Clarke, 2005), not to mention the teaching of my feminist theory class and my qualitative research classes, I was well prepared to confront the issues of reflexivity, voice, the hermeneutics of field work, validity, voice, text, and more. This struggle, which endures to this day, has sharpened my qualitative research and deepened my appreciation for the history and untapped potential of qualitative research. Eventually, I concluded that Kathy Charmaz’s (1995) social constructionist’s position is a highly sensible one. These sometimes mystifying and frustrating labors in the postmoderndeconstructionist vineyards prepared me to accept an invitation from Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (1994) to contribute a chapter on feminist qualitative research to their handbook, which Peter Manning (2003, p. 1035) aptly termed ‘‘a landmark’’. I found that writing that chapter (Olesen, 1994) and its subsequent revisions (Olesen, 2000b, 2005) was incredibly demanding, requiring that I move across disciplines, grapple with controversies within feminist thought, explore tensions among qualitative methods in fields which seem to expand exponentially with each passing

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year. The writing and revising of this chapter has continued to this day to affect my views of myself as a sociologist. An invitation from organizers of the 1990 British Medical Sociology Group’s annual meeting to give the plenary address changed me in a different way. They had accepted my suggestion that I address issues of emotions in health care, which, at that time, was a neglected issue in medical sociology. I saw this as a golden opportunity to take my long-time interest in medical sociology in a new direction by examining the profound changes that the US health care system was now undergoing. Our now highly cost conscious health care system demanded that health professionals speed up their delivery of physical care at the expense of their previously valued emotional care, a problem which I labeled ‘‘emotional lag.’’ I realized that I had to think through very carefully how both macro- and micro-sociological processes shape our work and selves, a type of analysis with which I had precious little experience. It took me several months of intensive study to get myself up to the speed required for me to speak before a British academic audience as one who was highly knowledgeable about this issue. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my speech at this group’s annual meeting was very well received, which was a milestone in the further development of my sociological self. I had broken the boundaries of my previous self by doing something which before that time, I never dreamed that I could do (Athens, 1995; Olesen, 1990a).

SOME FINAL REFLECTIONS During the almost 54 years that my story of how I became a sociologist covers, I unsurprisingly witnessed great changes in my three areas of sociological specialization: qualitative methodology, medical sociology, and women’s studies. Although there have been some ups and downs, qualitative sociology with some important exceptions has steadily grown since the 1960s in its influence and importance (Best, 2006; Fine, 1993; Sandstrom & Fine, 2003). We now have a larger theoretical and methodological repertoire than ever before in our history to choose from, especially for studying large scale societal issues with important policy implications. Today, the biggest problem facing qualitative sociologists remains obtaining funding from research granting agencies (Steinmetz, 2005a, 2005b). Medical sociology has also grown leaps and bounds over the last half century. Inquiries have begun to be made in bio-medicalization and globalization. There also has been a renewed interest in the old problem of

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the costs and quality of health care delivery, the breadth of its coverage, along with disparities in its availability. As the health care crisis deepens in our society, I expect the interest in these problems will continue to grow. Medical sociologists will be increasingly called on to contribute to their solution After 40 years of feminist scholarship, I think that feminist sociologists have left an indelible mark on the discipline. It is now an intellectual strand in sociology that must be reckoned with, although feminist sociologists continue to argue among themselves over the degree to which this is true (Laslett & Thorne, 1997). Although much has changed for the better for women regarding their access to faculty positions, their impact on curriculum, their participation in policy-relevant research, and their general influence in the discipline (thanks to Sociologists for Women in Society), much remains to be accomplished. More generally, feminist research is particularly needed on how gender, race, class, sexuality, and age intersect in diverse societies. I am hopeful, however, that the increasing numbers and sophistication of present-day feminist sociologists, both novices and veterans, can, eventually, move this critical work to new levels.

INTO THE FUTURE I retired early (1993) to take advantage of the benefits that my fiscally pressed university offered to persuade well-paid senior faculty to stand down. Thirty-three years of demanding teaching and committee work at UCSF were enough to persuade me to accept the university’s offer! I have not experienced retirement as particularly difficult or painful. However, I have found that my role as a retired sociology professor is one which must be executed with great finesse and flexibility. As far as one’s local colleagues are concerned, the trick is to remain interested in their problems and work, but not obtrusive; to be helpful when possible, but not overbearing. As far as with one’s colleagues elsewhere are concerned, the gambit is to remain current and lively. As far as myself is concerned, the tactic is to remain busy and productive, not fritter my time away, and enjoy the relief of not sitting on committees or preparing for classes. Retirement for me was a calendar marker to be sure, but in terms of my sociological self, more a way station than ending point. I have papers to finish, boxes of data from old projects to analyze, files full of memos on ideas for new papers to reflect on, and speaking and writing invitations to consider10, so there is still plenty of work for me to do. My life is

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‘‘continually open to new formulations, resisting determinancy’’ (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003, p. 850). I look forward to developments in my three areas of interest (qualitative, medical, and feminist sociology) that will present new challenges and bring more opportunities for my sociological self to grow. Over my long career, my sociological self has evolved in ways that I could have hardly anticipated at its beginning. I certainly do not plan to stop evolving as a sociologist now because I am retired. My intention is to wear out, not rust out. It’s the only way to go!

NOTES 1. The Vietnamese Buddhist concept of ‘‘interbeing’’ can be integrated with symbolic interactionism. (Olesen, 2000a). On interaction, space prevents acknowledgement of many wonderful clerical staff members in three universities, particularly UCSF, who were significant for me. Academic careers and selves are not only the fruits of scholarly work and collaboration, but also derive from staff labor and institutional knowledge. 2. Soon after our research started, the turbulent and challenging Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements swept American Universities, but never fully took root at UCSF, though a powerful Black Caucus emerged. We marched and sat in protests elsewhere. 3. By 1968 there was a small ‘‘critical mass’’ of sociologists, including Leonard Schatzman and Barney Glaser, which made establishment of the doctoral program possible. 4. This was an extraordinary project. Each team member did field work regularly over three years at his or her own site which the entire team also visited once to become acquainted with participants and programs at the site, to help the individual team member to assess and analyze emergent findings. I studied the Mt. Hood Community College Nursing Program near Portland, Oregon (Olesen, 1979). We exchanged all our field notes, analyzed others’ notes as well as our own and wrote memos. This episodic field work posed special demands (Olesen, 1990b, pp. 223–226), but I could see I could do field work beyond a single setting. 5. The project produced numerous papers on the nursing profession. I cite here those most closely related to my emerging sociological selves and interests (Davis & Olesen, 1963; Olesen & Whittaker, 1964, 1966, 1968; Whittaker & Olesen, 1964). 6. The Women, Health and Healing Specialty quickly became and continued to be the site for gifted graduate students to complete their own feminist-sociological projects which further shape expand sociological analysis of women’s health issues. 7. Our three summer teaching institutes drew national and international university teachers starting social science women’s health courses in various disciplines or women’s studies. We produced curricular materials, such as a bibliography on the health of minority women of color, one of the few at that time, an important contribution in the pre-cyber scholarship era (Ruzek, Anderson, Clarke, Olesen, & Hill, 1986).

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8. We outlined theoretical issues leading to new perspectives on women’s health (Lewin & Olesen, 1985), we emphasized diversities and complexities to criticized scholarly and medical homogenization of women’s issues (Ruzek, Olesen, & Clarke, 1997), and examined post-structural, post-colonical and post-modern perspectives to revision women’s health (Clarke & Olesen, 1999). 9. UCSF presented many opportunities to undertake feminist interventions which ranged from the informal, for example, reminding male colleagues that I, too, held a doctorate and wished to be addressed the same way they spoke to my male colleagues in sociology or psychology (Dr. or professor) rather than by my first name, to confrontations with campus institutions. Colleagues in nursing and I successfully struggled to change Academic Senate by laws to enable senior nurse faculty to sit on the powerful Committee on Academic Personnel where previously they had been excluded. The Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women, an administrative committee, which I chaired (1984–1986), did a major study of salary discrepancies between male and female faculty members. 10. My paper in a festschrift collection honoring my friend and colleague, Meg Stacey, British medical sociology pioneer who had significantly influenced my sociological, becoming set fresh directions for my sociological self (2001b). Kathy Charmaz, a leading medical sociologist renowned for her work and, a major grounded theorist, involved me in two enriching collaborations, one on ethnographic research in medical sociology (Charmaz & Olesen, 1997), one on SI and medical institutions (Charmaz & Olesen, 2003). Two nurse researchers, Diane Hatton and Anastasia Fisher, included me in a group at the Rockefeller Study Center at Bellagio to add feminist sociological perspectives to their project on health of incarcerated women (Olesen, 2009).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am enormously indebted to two critical and helpful readers: Lonnie Athens’ wide ranging editorial criticisms and suggestions for theoretical and substantive changes greatly improved the initial draft. Anne Davis’ close, thoughtful reading helped polish and improve later drafts.

REFERENCES Athens, L. (1994). The self as a soliloquy. Sociological Quarterly, 35(3), 521–532. Athens, L. (1995). Dramatic self change. Sociological Quarterly, 36(3), 571–586. Best, J. (2006). What, we worry? The pleasures and costs of defective memory for qualitative sociologists. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 466–477. Bloom, S. W. (2002). The word as scalpel: A history of medical sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Charmaz, K. (1995). Between positivism and postmodernism: Implications for methods. In: N. K. Denzin (Ed.), Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Vol. 17, pp. 43–72). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Charmaz, K., & Olesen, V. (1997). Ethnographic research in medical sociology: Its foci and distinctive contributions. Sociological Methods and Research, 25, 452–494. Charmaz, K., & Olesen, V. (2003). Medical institutions. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. HermanKinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interaction (pp. 637–656). Boulder, CO: Alta Mira. Chase, S. (2005). Narrative inquiry: Multiple lenses, approaches, voices. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), The sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 651–680). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clarke, A. E. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clarke, A. E., & Olesen, V. (Eds). (1999). Revisioning women, health and healing, feminist, cultural and technoscience perspectives (pp. 3–48). New York: Routledge. Davis, A., Lin, J. Y., Gan, L., & Olesen, V. (1992). Young pioneers: Preliminary analysis of a study of baccalaureate nursing students in the people’s republic of China. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 17, 1161–1170. Davis, F., & Olesen, V. (1963). Initiation into a woman’s profession: Identity problems in the status transition of coed to student nurse. Sociometry, 26, 89–101. Deegan, M. J. (2001). The chicago school of ethnography. In: P. Akinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland & L. Lofland (Eds), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 11–25). London: Sage. Delamont, S., & Atkinson, P. (2004). Qualitative research and the post-modern turn. In: M. Hardy & A. Bryman (Eds), Handbook of data analysis (pp. 667–682). Sage: London. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds). (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fenstermaker, S. (1997). Telling tales out of school: Three short stories of a feminist sociologist. In: B. Laslett & B. Thorne (Eds), Feminist sociology, life histories of a movement (pp. 209–228). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Fine, G. A. (1993). The sad demise, mysterious disappearance and glorious triumph of symbolic interactionism. Annual Review of Sociology, 19, 61–87. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Grant, G. (1979). Epilogue: New methods for study of a reform movement. In: G. Grant, P. Elbow, T. Ewens, Z. Gamson, W. Kohli, W. Neumann, V. Olesen & D. Riesman (Eds), On competence. A critical analysis of competence-based reforms in higher education (pp. 439–490). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Harding, N. (2007). On lacan and the becoming-ness of organizations/selves. Organization Studies, 28(11), 1761–1773. Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2000). The self we live by, narrative identity in a postmodern world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2003). The life course. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. J. HermanKinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 835–856). Boulder, CO: Alta Mira Press. Laslett, B., & Thorne, B. (1997). Feminist sociology, life histories of a movement. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Lewin, E., & Olesen, V. (1985). Women, health and healing: A theoretical introduction. In: E. Lewin & V. Olesen (Eds), Women, health and healing: Toward a new perspective (pp. 1–24). London: Tavistock-Methuen.

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Manning, P. K. (2003). Semiotics, pragmatism, narratives. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. J. Hermann-Kinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 1021–1040). New York: Alta Mira Press. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nelson, C., & Olesen, V. (1977). Notes on a first course in medical social science in the Arab Middle East. Medical Anthropology Newsletter, 9(1), 5–7. Olesen, V. (1975). Women and their health: Research implications for a new era (DHEW Publication No. (HRA) 77-3138). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Olesen, V. (1979). Overcoming crises in a new nursing program: Mt. Hood community college. In: G. Grant, P. Elbow, T. Ewens, Z. Gamson, W. Kohli, W. Neumann, V. Olesen & D. Riesman (Eds), On competence. A critical analysis of competence-based reforms in higher education (pp. 335–362). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Olesen, V. (1990a). The neglected emotions: A challenge to medical sociology. Medical Sociology News, 15, 10–15. Olesen, V. (1990b). Immersed, amorphous and episodic field work: Theory and policy in three contrasting contexts. In: R. Burgess (Ed.), Field work issues (Vol. 2, pp. 205–232). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Olesen, V. (1994). Feminisms and models of qualitative research. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 158–174). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Olesen, V. (2000a). Of crystals and inter-being. Address to the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction upon Receiving the SSSI Mentor Award. SSSI Notes, 27(3), 3(http://espach. salford.ac.uk/sssi/sssinotes/2000_Vol._27_Issue_3.pdf ). Olesen, V. (2000b). Feminisms and qualitative research at and into the millenium. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 215–256). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Olesen, V. (2001a). Do whatever you want: Audiences created, creating, recreated. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 267–273. Olesen, V. (2001b). Resisting ‘Fatal Unclutteredness’: Conceptualising the sociology of health and illness into the millenium. In: G. Bendelow, M. Carpenter, C. Vautier & S. Williams (Eds), Gender, health and healing, the public/private divide (pp. 254–266). London: Routledge. Olesen, V. (2005). Early millenial feminist qualitative research: Challenges and contours. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), The sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 235–278). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Olesen, V. (2007). Feminist qualitative research and grounded theory: Complexities, criticisms and opportunities. In: A. Bryant & K. Charmaz (Eds), The sage handbook of grounded theory (pp. 417–436). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Olesen, V. (2009). Social capital: A lens for examining health of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. In: Hatton, D. C. & Fisher, A. F. (Eds.), Incarcerated women: Justice and health for an internationally excluded population. London: Radcliffe. Olesen, V., & Katsuranis, F. (1978). Urban nomads: Women in temporary clerical services. In: A. H. Stromberg & S. Harkess (Eds), Women working (pp. 63–72). Palo Alto: CAL Mayfield. Olesen, V., & Whittaker, E. W. (1964). Role making in participant observation, processes in the researcher-actor relationship. Human Organization, 26(Winter), 273–281.

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Olesen, V., & Whittaker, E. W. (1966). Adjudication of student awareness in professional socialization: The language of laughter and silence. Sociological Quarterly, 7(Summer), 381–396. Olesen, V., & Whittaker, E. W. (1968). The silent dialogue: The social psychology of professional socialization. San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass. Rock, P. (2001). Symbolic interactionism and ethnography. In: P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland & L. Lofland (Eds), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 26–39). London: Sage. Rosenau, P. M. (1992). Post-modernism and the social sciences: Insights, inroads and intrusions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ruzek, S., Anderson, P., Clarke, A., Olesen, V., & Hill, K. (Eds). (1986). Minority women, health and healing in the U.S.: Selected bibliography and resources. San Francisco, CA: Women, Health and Healing Program, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California. Ruzek, S. B., Olesen, V., & Clarke, A. E. (Eds). (1997). Women’s health, complexities and diversities. Columbus, OH: Ohio StateUniversity Press. Sandstrom, K. L., & Fine, G. A. (2003). Triumphs, emerging voices and the future. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. J. Herman-Kinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 1041–1058). New York: Alta Mira Press. Scott, J. (1991). The evidence of experience. Critical Inquiry, l7, 773–779. Steinmetz, G. (2005a). Introduction. Positivism and its others in the social sciences. In: G. Steinmetz (Ed.), The politics of method in the social sciences. Positivism and its epistemological others (pp. 1–56). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Steinmetz, G. (2005b). Scientific authority and the transition to post-fordism: The plausibility of positivism in US sociology since l945. In: G. Steinmetz (Ed.), The politics of method in the social sciences. Positivism and its epistemological others (pp. 275–326). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Strauss, A. L. (1993). Continual permutations of action. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Whittaker, E. W., & Olesen, V. (1964). Faces of Florence Nightingale. Human Organization, 23(Summer), 123–130.

PART II COMMODITY RACISM: REPRESENTATION, RACIALIZATION, AND RESISTANCE

COMMODITY RACISM NOW C. Richard King Begin anywhere: the grocery store or the liquor store, the toy aisle at the department store or discount outlet, a news weekly or fashion monthly, the local ‘‘ethnic’’ eatery, the much anticipated tourist destination or even the more edifying heritage site, the latest trend in home furnishing or chic couture, the musical styles topping the charts, no less than the manufactured lifestyles associated with them, video games, health regimes, and almost every holiday punctuating the national calendar. Begin with the illusions of choice and cliche´s of desire that clothe the political in the personal, which at once not only reproduce hierarchies and identities, but also fosters (albeit in a decidedly limited fashion) forms of reinvention and resistance. Above all else begin with the language of advertising: the trademark, the slogan, the billboard, the glossy magazine spread, the television spot, the calculated campaign, and the brandscape. In short, begin with the equipment of life, the techniques of the self, the grammar, and vocabulary of the spectacle in all of its permutations, essentially the stuff of life in the here and now, variously described as postmodern, late or fast capital, neoliberal, neoconservative, post-industrial, decolonial, and neoimperial. Begin anywhere as it has no end. Indeed, wherever one looks, however one feels, whatever one consumes almost invariably pivots around commodity racism. Over the past century and half, it has radically altered the production of racial images, ideologies, and identities, easing the detachment of race from its biological moorings, whereas fostering the reiteration of racialized

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networks of domination. Emergent at the intersections of imperialism and industrial capital, in the nascent consumer culture of the Victorian era, commodity racism has mutated in response to the intensification, diversification, and globalization of post-Fordist, consumer capitalism as well as the emergence of an era that (falsely) congratulates itself on moving beyond race and racism through an embrace of the principles of colorblindness and multiculturalism. As such, unraveling commodity racism now promises to unravel the reigning racial formation, highlighting the novel conjuncture of structural arrangements, and signifying practices that make race meaningful as social construction, material force, and lived experience. This thematic section of Studies in Symbolic Interaction concerns itself with five relationships between commodification and racialization, gathered together under the shorthand, commodity racism: (1) the processes and practices which imbue commodities with racist/racialized significance; (2) the processes and practices of selling commodities through race; (3) accounts and interpretations of race, race relations, racial difference, and the like offered through commodity/commodified texts; (4) the commodification of racialized difference (as a destination, set of pleasures, and technology of self); and (5) the processes and practices deployed to question and challenge dominant articulations of racialization and commodification. In short, the contributors unpack a constellation of relationships fundamental to the contours of contemporary North American sociohistorical formations, illuminating the racialization of commodity production, circulation, and consumption, whereas exposing the commodification of racial difference, identity, and relations. To this end, it asks three intertwined questions: (1) how do commodities racialize? (2) how are commodities racialized? and (3) how do consumers and communities resist? Commodity Racism: Representation, Racialization, and Resistance brings together eight essays to examine the complex, contradictory, and often contested articulations of commodification and racialization in the United States. It endeavors to offer a critical and comparative assessment of these relationships, which pushes beyond approaches anchored in a black:white paradigm to explore commodity racism in the (often neglected) contexts of Native American (including Hawaii), Asian American, Latina/o America, and the (supposedly raceless) white mainstream. Topics examined include the racialization of Santa Clause, athletes, and ethnic festivals, the centrality of branding, trademarks and copyrights to commodity racism, the centrality of racialized consumption to identity formation and subjectification, and strategies of consumer resistance.

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COMMODITY RACISM The fundamental issue of this thematic section, as phrased in abstract terms by hooks (1992, p. 23), is that the consumption of racial difference, or as she puts it, ‘‘eating the other,’’ and its profound effects: ‘‘When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races y affirm their power-over.’’ Though this nicely encapsulates the subject at hand and associated consequences, it does little to contextualize or account for changes over time – both of which are crucial if are engage commodity racism now. In her classic work, Imperial Leather, McClintock (1995, pp. 207–231) traces the multiplication of racism during the late 19th century. Specifically, she elaborated on the emergence of commodity racism, that is, the creation of racial registers beyond the then dominant language of scientific racism, allowing it to speak about the scope and significance of racial difference to new audiences formerly excluded by class, education, literacy, and gender. McClintock, furthermore, highlighted the ways in which marketing and exhibitions emerged as consumer spectacles, seizing on racial difference to inscribe narratives of difference and desire. Importantly, this novel economy of signs simultaneously rested on prevailing understandings of gender and imperial expansion. Little better attests to this complex articulation, McClintock continues, that soap, which simultaneously knitted together domesticity, empire, and race. Selling soap meant selling race, gender, sexuality, and empire. In its initial formulation, particularly in the context on the then expanding United Kingdom, ‘‘Commodity racism – in the specifically Victorian forms of advertising and photography, the imperial expositions and the museum movement – converted the narrative of imperial progress into mass-produced consumer spectacles’’ (p. 33, emphasis original). Of course, commodity racism was neither restricted to Victorian Britain nor exclusively preoccupied with colonial cosmologies. In the context of the United States, for instance, during roughly the same period McClintock discusses, whereas consumer culture certainly offered a language to work through the racial logics of imperial expansion, blackness, the legacies of slavery, and racial rule proved equally important in the exhibition, marketing, and circulation of commodities (Hale, 1999; Manring, 1998). In this context, its initial articulation – on myriad products, countless advertisements, and sundry mementoes and curios – commodity racism not only knitted together race and gender, public and private, self and other as it established the

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boundaries, but it also provided a framework for lived relations. Recent studies of consumer culture in the United States make plain that advertising and branding, no less than commodities and their uses, bound whites and blacks to particular roles and relations. In the era following Reconstruction, the symbolic violence of the marketplace mirrored the lived terror and gruesome brutalities of Jim Crow. Specific commodities, such as Aunt Jemima pancake mix, emerged from vernacular culture (in this case minstrel shows) and crossed over as brand and world’s fair exhibit to reinforce prevailing views of blacks (as servile, dependent, and inferior), remind whites of their presumed superiority, justify exclusion, and reiterate nostalgic fantasy of the South before the Fall. Importantly, at the same time the commercialized imaginary was conjuring racial fantasies escape routes for the white consumer, emergent spaces of consumption gave them material, erecting legal and practical barrier between whites and blacks, enforcing segregation in stores, hotel, beaches, and other public accommodations (as well as schools, buses, and housing). Sign and structure met and moved through the commodity form and its circulation. Importantly, it would be both the objects and sites of consumption which would later ground freedom struggles in the South: lunch counters and department stores, sports teams and pools, boycotts of products like Aunt Jemima, and a Black arts movement that would in part animate itself through the visual interrogation of commodity racism. Perhaps in unanticipated ways, however, commodity racism survived Queen Victoria and Jim Crow. Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben still have a hallowed place among brands. Reinvented to be sure, but what has changed? Aunt Jemima without her kerchief still sands in as the iconic mammy, whereas Uncle Ben having moved to the corner office still sells stuff to and for White America, the affable and unthreatening black man, now in a suit, a token of corporate diversity programming and a tribute to the hollowness of hyperinclusivity in an era of retrenched racial hierarchies. These icons outlived the passions of protestors and were reborn in many ways because of their efforts. They point to flexibility commodity racism, its adaptability and inventiveness. For it not only has redrawn imagery to stay attuned with changing mores, it has quite literally played a fundamental role in remaking race itself. As Lury (1996, p. 169, emphasis original) argues, it has contributed to shifts in how racism operates, specifically to the shift from a form of racism tied to a biological undersanding of ‘‘race’’ in which identity is fixed or naturalized to a racism in ‘‘race’’ is a cultural category in which racial identity is represented as a matter of style, and the subject of choice.

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Indeed, according to Willis (1995) commodification contributes to a reworking of race that proposes it is little more than ‘‘a matter of style, something that can be put on or taken off at will.’’

RESILIENCY AND REVISION Commodity racism persists but has taken on novel contours in response to a changing social context (see Spencer, 2004): a context emergent in the aftermath of anticolonial and freedom struggles, the end of overt white supremacy, the exhaustion of political projects directed at justice and equality, the collapse of the metanarratives of modernity, the passing of industrial capital, the withering of the nation-state, the compression of time and space, the eruption of new media, the culture wars, the union of neoliberalism and neoconservativism, and most recently the quest for a new world order. Key to the shape of commodity racism now are new socioeconomic conditions, new racism, novel identities and associated identity politics – both expressed through and against commodity forms, and new markets.

New Economy Commodity racism as described in its classical form associated with British Imperialism and Jim Crow expressed the racial logics of a capitalist regime rooted industrial mass-production, perfected under Fordism, colonial expansion, a clear, pronounced class system, and an alignment between national and corporate interests. The rearticulation of commodity racism, perhaps best described as the complement of what has been dubbed late modern, postmodern, or liquid modern, and associated post-industrial, global, or fast capital. The terms (and the differences between them) matter less than the novel formation to which they refer. Twenty years ago, Hall (1991, pp. 57–58) offered a visionary mapping of the then emergent structures, describing them as post-Fordism: Post-Fordism is a term suggesting a whole new epoch distinct from the era of mass production y it covers at least some of the following characteristics: a shift to new information ‘‘technologies’’; more decentralized forms of labor process and work organization, a decline of the old manufacturing base and the growth of the ‘‘sunrise,’’ computer-based industries; the hiving off or contracting out functions and services; a greater emphasis on choice and product differentiation, on marketing, packaging, and design, on the ‘‘targeting’’ consumers by lifestyle, taste, and culture rather than by

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categories of social class; a decline in the proportion of the skilled male, manual working class, the rise of the service and white-collar classes and the ‘‘feminization of the work force; an economy dominated by the multinationals, with their new international division of labor and their greater autonomy from nation-state control; and the ‘‘globalization’’ of the new financial markets, linked by the communications revolution.

These reconfigurations lay the foundation for the reformulation of commodity racism, but by themselves would be insufficient.

New Racism Changing material conditions have contributed to the crystallization of novel signifying practices for the connecting, conveying, and circulating racial difference and social power. What me might think of as the prevailing racial logic of late modern, consumer capitalism has increasingly come to be called ‘‘new racism’’ (Ansell, 1997; Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Collins, 2005), a phrase meant to describe the persistent and powerful presence of racial stratification and symbols in a moment in which racelessness might be the dominant desire, underscoring important changes that have occurred in the wake of the Civil Right Movement and the ongoing (racialized) wars at the heart of America: the war on drugs, the war on terror, and the culture wars. Coming to terms with the force of (commodity) racism today requires an acknowledgement that the victories secured more than a generation ago in struggles for racial freedom, social justice, and decolonization have become the contested terrain of neoconservative retrenchment. An awkward juxtaposition, to be sure, new racism does push us recognize that social injustice and racial inequality fester in the USA, often in ways more pronounced and chronic than four decades ago, and provide tools to identify the terms and tactics that enliven, embody, and excuse it. Bonilla-Silva (2003) conceives of colorblindness as a primary building block of the racial ideologies that supports and extends the reigning racialized order of things. Like all ideologies, he continues, colorblindness works because it offers a set of frames to account for and make sense of race and racism. Specifically, he suggests that within a the context of new racism whites employ four frames: (1) abstract liberalism, an ethos blending individualism, a rhetoric of equality, and choice; (2) naturalization, or the assertion that ‘‘racial phenomena y are natural occurrences’’ (p. 28); (3) cultural racism, the appeal to culture to explain difference; and (4) minimization, or efforts to reduce or dismiss the continuing significance of race and racism. His schema echoes Ansell’s earlier work, which identified

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three elements of new racism: ‘‘a sanitized, coded language y disavowals of racist intent and y a shift from a focus on race and biological relations to a concern fro cultural differentiation and national identity’’ (Bonilla-Silva, 2003, p. 57). Collins (2005) recognizes the shifting ideological contours, but draws our attention to its connection to material conditions. She concurs with Ansell and Bonill-Silva that the centrality of culture to contemporary forms of racism is paramount: In prior periods in which biological theories were used to justify racist practices, racism and antiracism had a seemingly organic and oppositional relationship. One could either be for racism by believing that Blacks were biologically inferior and deserved the treatment they received or one could be against it by rejecting these beliefs and pointing to racial prejudice and institutional discrimination as more important in explaining Black disadvantage. These distinctions no longer hold for many White and Black Americans. Under the new color-blind racism that erases the color line, racism itself seems to have disappeared. (p. 45)

To trace and prevent this disappearance, Collins (2005, p. 54), identifies key structural issues: emergent global economic flows, transnational webs of power, and ‘‘new patterns of corporate organization,’’ all of which perpetuate racial hierarchies without the rule of law or state violence. Of equal importance, she argues, mass media and consumer spectacle have proven central to the manufacture of consent and the reformulation of racism: ‘‘present hegemonic ideologies that claim that racism is over. They work to obscure the racism that does exist and they undercut antiracist protest’’ (p. 54). Commodity racism, then, becomes a primary mediator in a global, post-industrial order, where the legacies and realities of racism make the system functional, meaningful and profitable, but its presence must always be held under erasure, in which racial difference is desired and demonized, in which alternatives and resistance rather than being oppositional problems become absorbed as fads or fashions, readily accessible for cooptation and commodification.

New Racial Politics of Consumption McClintock (1995, pp. 226–231) details the ways in which the exchange of commodities in the context of colonial encounters offered occasions to perform European notions of value, power, and culture as well as indigenous counter-narratives which troubled these imperial theatrics. Over the past four decades, the commodity form and the spectacles animating it

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have become among the primary arenas for the articulation of identity and the formulation of resistance. Although racialized communities had intermittently targeted commodities and their entanglements with racism in advance of the freedom struggles and decolonial movements that erupted after the World War II, it is not until the late 1960s that consumption becomes fully politicized. For instance, African Americans pushed for and prompted changes to Aunt Jemima (Manring, 1998), Chicanos pressured Frito-Lay to retire Frito Lay (Noriega, 2000, pp. 28–50), and Native Americans began a campaign against disparaging sport mascots (King & Springwood, 2001). The use of racialized images to market products became political, contributing to the articulation of new identity politics, which in turn laid the foundation for the reformulation, not the elimination of commodity racism. The seeds of containment can be glimpsed in corporate response to such critiques. To take but one example. In the early 1970s, Lark cigarettes ran a campaign featuring a character named Paco, noteworthy for his sloppiness and poor work ethics. According to Martinez (1972), student activists wrote Lark’s parent company, Liggett and Meyers, calling into question its use of stereotypes and cliche´d ethnic humor. The letter from the L&M’s Director of Public relations sought to defuse their concerns and reframe Paco. We sincerely regret your reaction to this commercial because we did not intend to be derogatory to any ethnic group y ‘‘Paco’’ is a warm, sympathetic and lovable character with whom most of us can identify because he has a little of all of us in him y it [the commercial] was tested carefully with many audiences, including MexicanAmericans y with no negative indications of any kind y we will continue to examine all of advertising carefully in our effort to avoid offending any individual or minority group. (p. 102)

Key terms here include intention (which did not mean to be racist), ‘‘a little of all of us’’ (race not the issue and unimportant; Paco is us), others like you were okay with it (only politicized or sensitive ‘‘Mexican-Americans’’ would take issue), and ‘‘avoid offending’’ (it is just a feeling). Importantly, this instance points to a number of important shifts taking shape in the wake of the civil rights movement. First, commercial culture, particularly brands and advertisements had emerged as a key site of opposition, a space in which to foster empowerment and articulate identity politics. Second, stereotyping centered these efforts, pushing the racial politics of consumption toward ugly images and in turn, the identification of offended individuals. Third, a few short years after the Civil Rights Act and in the midst of various Peoples’ Power movements (Black Power, Brown Power, and Red Power), corporate messaging would increasingly spin on

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apologizing for inadvertence, work for containment, and consciously or unconsciously direct attention away from racial structures and their unspoken center – whiteness. Finally, the Director of Public Relations signals that L&M, and American corporations more generally had ethnic groups on their radar, highlighting the rising importance of ‘‘ethnic’’ markets to consumer culture in the USA.

New Markets Perhaps because advertising has overwhelming tendency to express itself in a positive register (Falk, 1997), it is not surprising that consumer culture has sought to foster affirmative images of the others it once maligned, made fun of, and at whose expense they otherwise profited. That is, alongside familiar articulations of racialization and commodification, commodity racism itself has multiplied, now offering positive images that stress humanness and inclusion as they celebrate diversity and singularity. This turn has converged with the fragmentation of the consuming public into niche markets and in large part reflects a desire to cultivate ‘‘ethnic’’ markets. It is not without its irony however: the trick of advertising in post-civil rights America is that it simultaneously hails a broad, purportedly raceless, audience and target ethnic consumers, thus reinforcing racialized differences and their embrications with power. As Kim and Chung (2005, p. 88) note: ‘‘The subtle ingenuity of the multicultural advertisement campaign is the way it is able to profit off a multiracial consumer base through greater inclusion while maintaining White male supremacy through y visual consumption.’’ Or, as Giroux (1994) further argues through an analysis of the United Colors of Bennetton, the logic of consumption in the age after race demands apolitical and essentialized images that project egalitarianism and equivalence as they erase the legacies of white supremacy.

WHAT FOLLOWS Eight essays, from distinct disciplinary traditions, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches, comprise Commodity Racism: Representation, Racialization, and Resistance. Together, they trace the contours of commodity racism today, taking up the thematic currents of food and drink, the body, holiday celebrations, and opposition to highlight the connections

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among structure and signification, image and experience, as well as consumption and contestation. The thematic section opens with Jeffrey Santa Ana consideration of the commercialization of feeling. In many ways, his discussion extends and expands the brief sketch presented in this introduction as he thinks through the materiality of signification and emotion and elaborates on the importance of globalization and neoliberalism, particularly as they direct attention to a novel, more flexible (racial) subject and set of social arrangements in which consumption increasingly contributes to containment. Against this background, the next two essays take up more symbolic questions. Debra Merskin unpacks the persistent use of Indianness in branding. Following a sophisticated theoretical discussion, she offers detailed histories of prominent products, including Land o’Lakes Sue Bee honey, and Crazy Horse malt liquor. Through these interpretative accounts she not only captures the appropriations and colonizations at the heart of American (commodity) racism, but identifies sites and sources for resistance to these practices. Next, Sheng-mei Ma offers the first of several meditations on consumption as metaphor and practice. His nuanced reading of literary texts, cultural practices, and culinary motifs suggests the centrality of cannibalism to Occidental engagements with the Orient and the place of the latter in consumer culture. The act of appropriating and absorbing the Oriental other, Ma continues, has proven an inherently productive, if parasitic practice. In this context, his take on Chinese restaurants in the USA is especially instructive. The next set of essays turns to the place of the body in commodity racism now. Leonard examines professional sport marketing, probing the tense relationships between colorblind rhetoric that desires racelessness and the prevailing policing of threatening black athletes in the National Basketball Association. To make sense of these tensions, he rightly locates the panic over blackness in sport in relation to the demonization of hip-hop and the longing for a post-race America. This schizophrenic take on race allows predominantly white audiences, he argues, to possess black bodies, and even occupy blackness as a style, and denounce, marginalize, and criminalize African Americans. Vernadette Gonzalez, in turn, takes us on holiday, presenting a critical tour of tourism in Hawai’i. Performances and artifacts created for consumer’s center her analysis which allow a detailed assessment of the place of body, difference, and misrecognition to such spectacles. Particularly informative are here readings of the realization of racial difference cultural, gendered, and sexualized tropes.

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The subsequent pair of essays explores how commodity racism shapes national celebrations. Jose Alamillo provides a critical reading of a manufactured holiday, Cinco de Mayo. He unpacks a story of racial commercialization, the commercialization of Latinos, particularly Mexicanos, through alcohol, describing the crystallization of what he dubs ‘‘Drink de Mayo,’’ as a false celebration rooted in racial misrecognition and a desire to step out of the everyday into a libidinal space opened by it. Drink de mayo, he continues, misreads Mexican history, took St. Patrick’s Day as a model, and plays off stereotypes, particularly exoticism and hypersexuality. If Cinco de Mayo reveals what is possible to do with difference, Christmas may expose its limits. Although whites have embraced the former as Mexican, an exotic party and decidedly liminal occasion for excess, Charles F. Springwood shows that Christmas remains a white holiday. He probes the troubling prospects of a Black Santa, revealing the identity politics at the heart of what is arguably the most commodified festival in American life. His account speaks to a broad refusal to rethink ‘‘tradition’’ and an oppositional imagination that has long exerted an alternative vision of the holiday and its racial meanings. The thematic section closes with a consideration of the racial politics of consumption. C. Richard King examines increasingly common efforts to challenge articulations of racial difference in a commercialized context. Though such accounts frequently romanticize resistance, he troubles such readings, suggesting that, in many cases, recent uses of racial difference and opposition to them illuminate the unsettled state of whiteness and efforts to recuperate a more secure, stable, and superior white-national subject.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project grew out of my previous and ongoing collaboration with faculty in Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, particularly our various projects on race and kids culture. I especially appreciate the input and encouragement of Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo, Lisa Guerrero, David Leonard, and Carmen Lugo-Lugo as I formulated my thinking on this topic and completed overlapping endeavors with them. I am grateful as well to the contributors for their patience as this project came to fruition. As always, I remain indebted to Norman Denzin for his continuing interest in and support of my work. Finally, I extend my deepest gratitude to Marcie Gilliland, without whom none of this would be possible.

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REFERENCES Ansell, A. E. (1997). New right, new racism: Race and reaction in the United States and Britain. New York: New York University Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Collins, P. H. (2005). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender, and the new racism. New York: Routledge. Falk, P. (1997). The Benetton-Toscani effect: Testing the limits of conventional advertising. In: M. Nava, A. Blake, I. McCury & B. Richards (Eds), Buy this book: Studies in advertising and consumption (pp. 64–83). New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. A. (1994). Consuming social change: The united colors of Bennetton. In: Disturbing pleasures: Learning popular culture (pp. 3–24). New York: Routledge. Hale, G. E. (1999). Making whiteness: The culture of segregation in the South, 1890–1940. New York: Random House. Hall, S. (1991). Brave new world: The debate about post-fordism. Socialist Review, 21(1), 57–64. hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. Boston: South End Press. Kim, M., & Chung, A. Y. (2005). Consuming orintalism: Images of Asian/American women in multicultural advertising. Qualitative Sociology, 28(1), 67–91. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (Eds). (2001). Team spirits: The native American mascot controversy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lury, C. (1996). Consumer culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Manring, M. M. (1998). Slave in a box: The strange career of Aunt Jemima. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Martinez, T. M. (1972). Advertising and racism: The case of the Mexican-American. In: E. Simmen (Ed.), Pain and promise the Chicano today (pp. 94–105). New York: New American Library. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. Noriega, C. A. (2000). Shot in America: Television, the state and the rise of Chicano cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Spencer, N. E. (2004). Sister act IV: Venus and Serena Williams at Indian Wells: ‘‘Sincere Fictions’’ and White racism. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 28(2), 115–135. Willis, S. (1995). I want the black one: Is there a place for Afro-American culture in commodity culture? In: E. Carter, J. Donald & J. Squires (Eds), Cultural remix: Theories of politics and the popular (pp. 141–166). London: Lawrence & Wishart.

COMMODITY RACE AND EMOTION: THE RACIAL COMMERCIALIZATION OF HUMAN FEELING IN CORPORATE CONSUMERISM Jeffrey Santa Ana Like the commodities and financial scams used to make money for the militia groups, like the massive domestic industry of selling guns and weaponry, like the exploitation of stories of danger by the media, the globalized prison industry, with its huge network of privatized support service industries, demonstrates the ways that the U.S. economy is a ‘‘fear economy,’’ surviving as a form of capitalism that is fed by fear y ‘‘Without fear and insecurity, capitalism would not have the economic sanctions that make it profitable.’’ (Marita Sturken, 2007, pp. 50–51)

Barack Obama (2008) in his landmark speech on race, ‘‘A More Perfect Union,’’ argues that emotions of white anxiety and resentment distract attention from ‘‘the real culprits of middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed.’’ Obama (2008) explains a compelling political relationship between race, capitalism, and feelings by underscoring the anger African Americans have felt for their economic disenfranchisement as well as the aggrieved emotions white Americans have expressed for their financial losses ‘‘in an era of stagnant wages and global competition.’’ By locating the negative feelings of black and white Americans in economics – specifically, the lack of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 109–128 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033010

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economic opportunity in the past and present – Obama provocatively suggests a political–economic analysis of race and emotion: a materialist explanation for how emotions powerfully shape racial and ethnic identities in a multicultural capitalist society. However, his suggestion that emotions deflect attention from corrupt business practices rehearses a common misunderstanding about the political instrumentality of emotion in capitalism. Rather than distract attention from corporate corruption, negative emotions such as anxiety and anger are actually necessary to the operation of global business. Contemporary business cultures work intimately with negative feelings, harnessing, appropriating, and then neutralizing them for the advance of capitalist production. This chapter argues that a sociopolitical critique of emotions is crucial to understand capitalist production and the construction of racial identities in a global economy. Although references to emotion are ubiquitous in discourses on material inequality and class privilege, scholars across a wide range of disciplines committed to analyzing race and ethnicity have not adequately examined the materialist aspects of emotion in relation to the production of social and cultural identities. Little available criticism focuses on emotions in theories of racial formation. Even less criticism attempts to understand the feelings of the racial subject from a materialist perspective. This chapter contends that we can examine feelings as social conditions to expand the critical project of theorizing race in the consumer culture of capitalist society. In today’s unstable economy, negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, and disaffection are produced by global capital while they simultaneously play an important role in shaping identities and subjectivities in ways that reconcile them to the uncertainties and structural inequities of capitalism. Feelings such as disaffection and cynicism are, for example, both generated by and instrumental to the perpetuation of the contemporary workplace and its unpredictable changes. Global businesses turn these negative feelings into professional ideals of flexibility for a contemporary working environment in which sudden and unpredictable changes are the norm, and further, in which the corporate culture that fully administers the world remains invisibly omnipresent. It is given that no space on Earth remains untouched by capitalism. The world is a totally commodified place. Nothing more clearly demonstrates the entire commodification of human society than the perverse absorption of negative emotions – or ‘‘ugly feelings,’’ as Sianne Ngai (2005) puts it – into today’s capitalist economy. Negative feelings like anxiety, fear, and disaffection not only express the sense that the world is wobbling out of control from the immense restructurings of globalization, but these same

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feelings have been neatly integrated into the economy to create the attitudes and dispositions necessary for living in a system of perpetual fluctuation, indeterminacy, and unease. Social analysis of racial identity today must therefore emphasize the politics of consumerism in the commodification of human feeling. For negative feelings have become important to maintain the social violence and material inequalities implicit to corporate consumerism. They are now important to neutralize opposition and maintain the status quo in capitalist society inasmuch as they articulate criticism of it.

CRITICAL THOUGHT IN NEOLIBERALISM In an era of global economic expansion, the harsh underside of capitalism clearly affects human subjectivities and consciousness.1 Emotions, which both express and structure subjectivity and consciousness, reflect and manifest the social reality of human life in its various globalized dimensions. My argument in this chapter thus concerns the ways in which the contradictions as the harsh underside of capitalism affect the subjectivities of racial minorities. For this reason, the relationship between emotions and commodity capitalism is an especially pressing concern for the formation and expression of racial identity in the United States today. To understand the social reality of race in the U.S. capitalist system is to take seriously the affects that express and constitute the critical social thought of racial minorities. As African Americanist scholars such as Cornel West (1994, p. 42) have argued, the ideology of unregulated capital in corporate consumerism creates market moralities and market mentalities that ‘‘erode civil society.’’ The critical thought of black Americans, West (1992, p. 42) avers, suffers irreparable damage by images that relentlessly commercialize the so-called good life: These seductive images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others – and thereby edge out nonmarket values – love, care, service to others – handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward off self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.

Corporations thus capitalize on civil rights gains while commodifying the activist politics of communities and governmental organizations. In effect, the ‘‘status quo’’ of government that promotes economic justice and civil rights protections is fragmented and replaced by corporate domination and the rule of the free market. Instead of turning to non-commercial avenues of civil society to change oppressive relations of power, Americans opt for

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consuming social change in a laissez-faire economy that equates individualism and free choice with purchasing merchandise. In her powerful critique of class privilege and consumption-based individualism, Bell Hooks (2000, p. 81) explains how the media’s use of race to promote a ‘‘shared culture of consumerism’’ vitiates community values and deflects attention from class antagonism. Such consumerism, Hooks maintains, promotes ambitions for lifestyles of conspicuous consumption and celebrity that renders incoherent and undesirable a democratic sensibility that made civil rights gains for women and minorities possible in the first place (Bell Hooks, 2000, p. 77). As these critiques by African-Americanist scholars suggest, a culture of corporate consumerism limits the political diversity of minorities to express dissent and criticism. These critiques imply, moreover, the processes of reification and objectification in today’s ‘‘market-inspired way of life,’’ which we may understand to diagnose the subjectivities of racial minorities living amid the contradictions of commercialized sensation and affect. As Arlie Hochschild (1983, p. 85) contends in her classic study of commercialized feeling in the airline industry, emotion is a sense like hearing that communicates information and tells us about social reality. Emotion allows us to ‘‘discover our own viewpoint on the world’’ (p. 17), and in processing feeling as the management of a particular situation or event, we get in touch with and attempt to manage something that deeply affects us through a process that actually creates feeling or emotion (pp. 17–18). If we create emotion by managing it, then such management of feeling implies the creation and expression of subjectivity and, by extension, the formation of critical thought. I refer to Hochschild’s argument here not only to emphasize the importance of emotion in formations of critical subjectivity but also to underscore the problem that commodified affect in consumer-based individualism poses for a historically informed understanding of minority differences and cultural diversity. The commercialization of human feeling in consumerism may render irrelevant critical feelings of political struggle and the dissent of minority people. In consumer capitalism where corporations manage and commodify human feeling, emotions of resistance and critical thought that express a collective sense of history and alliance, and which disturb the conventional articulation of the U.S. hegemonic society, are becoming scarce. ‘‘It is from feeling that we learn the self-relevance of what we see, remember, or imagine,’’ writes Hochschild (1983, p. 196). ‘‘Yet it is precisely this precious resource that is put in jeopardy when a company inserts a commercial purpose between feeling and its interpretation’’ (p. 196). As Marita Sturken (2007, pp. 18–26) has argued in her study of America’s response to national trauma through kitsch sentiment and tourism,

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consumerism offers prepackaged emotions of comfort and security at the expense of critical thought. Yet what specifically happens to the potential for exercising and developing critical thought in a culture of commodity capitalism? Do the sensation and affect of consumerism limit formations and expressions of diverse human feeling? The waning of emotional diversity in consumerism, I suggest, sets up the conditions for assimilation into the market logic of neoliberalism, which masks disparities and inequalities of resources and unmet human needs. By neoliberalism, I am referring to the reigning political economic model of free markets, which calls for dismantling the U.S. welfare state to increase corporate profits. As Lisa Duggan (2003, p. xv) explains, the neoliberal agenda includes ‘‘shrinking public institutions, expanding private profit-making prerogatives, and undercutting democratic practices and noncommercial cultures.’’ The privatization of state-owned enterprises and ideological emphasis on personal responsibility are cultural imperatives in neoliberalism aimed at redistributing material resources upward, concentrating wealth in the hands of an economic elite and creating, as well as exacerbating, inequalities along lines of class, race, sexuality, and gender.2 Moreover, as David Harvey (2005) argues, neoliberalism forswears state ownership of industry and enterprise and reduces state spending on education, health care, and social services. Although such limitations might indeed reduce the administrative apparatus of the state and thus weaken it as a social actor, the administrative capacity of the neoliberal state must be sufficient to guarantee the stability of currency, the functionality of markets, and the sanctity of private property. A paradigm shift of immense proportions, then, neoliberalism as a way of life within the logic of privatization is to a large extent about imagining and desiring the sensation and affect of mass-produced individualism and self-gratification. The commercialization of human feeling in neoliberalism does not really make us want to ‘‘Think Different,’’ as an Apple Computers’ advertising slogan has had its customers believe, but to make human life conform to consumerism and accommodate neoliberal privatization which perpetuates and maintains this way of life.3

RACE, FEELING, AND THE CULTURE OF CONSUMPTION Today’s consumer culture is a dimension of neoliberal globalization. We have arrived ‘‘at the point at which the economic passes over into the

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social,’’ Fredric Jameson (2000) maintains, ‘‘since, as part of daily life, the ‘culture of consumption’ is in fact a part and parcel of the social fabric and can scarcely be separated from it.’’ If, as Jameson suggests, capitalism has transformed U.S. citizenship into a ‘‘culture of consumption,’’ it has done so in an anxious neoliberal fashion. Americans have nurtured and shaped a democratic public life that is now undermined by the privatization interests of the free market and corporate consumerism. That U.S. citizenship is now identifiable with the ‘‘freedom to purchase’’ in the culture of corporate consumerism shows the extent to which public life has become disengaged from critical thinking that might imagine and implement an alternative social order to a currently repressive one (Sturken, 2007, p. 89). The concealment of everyday forms of racial hierarchy and oppression,4 for example, is evident in the use of racial and ethnic minorities to glamorize diversity in the neoliberal logic of unregulated and maximized profits. Advancing free-market ideology, the commercializing of minority differences evinces a ‘‘consumer postmodernism,’’ writes Henry Giroux (1993–1994, p. 6), which transforms ‘‘politics and difference into the stylized world of aesthetics and consumption.’’5 In effect, the commercialization of race and ethnicity for the sole purpose of extracting surplus value converts racial identity into alluring signifiers for economic privilege and cultural capital. This commodification of race would thus make Americans forget the history of repression, exclusion, and the disenfranchisement of immigrants and minorities in the United States.6 Take, for instance, IBM’s commodification of race to promote its business consulting products. In a recent IBM Global Services advertisement, a young black woman named Dayzie is displayed as a figure of global commerce. Text between arrows encircles Dayzie’s face to narrate the beginning and unfortunate demise of her Internet business, ‘‘dayzie.com.’’ Ultimately Dayzie’s business fails, the ad tells us, because she did not consult the experts at IBM Global Services at the time she secured enough ‘‘venture capital’’ to begin her business and pay IBM experts for their consultation. Of particular interest here is the way the ad places Dayzie’s narrative around her face, as if mapping her features and subjectivity onto the imaginary ideal of transnational commerce maintained by the consulting experts at IBM. Dayzie’s features and countenance, in effect, suggest the very image of capitalism’s shift to a transnational system of accumulation and the globalization of liberal pluralism for the net gain of corporations such as IBM. Dayzie’s face thus incarnates corporate multiculturalism and its attendant concept of U.S. businesses going global in a social context that disengages corporations from outdated meanings of U.S. national identity.

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The concept of the transnational corporation, especially as a global multicultural network for the professional-managerial class, pivots on the notion that its workers and consumers are not bound by national allegiances. If Dayzie had used, according to the logic of the ad, her venture capital to hire the consultant experts at IBM, the map of her business narrative would show arrows completing the final segment of a potentially global enterprise. That this final part of her narrative is incomplete, however, does not only mean she has failed to transcend her business into transnational commerce, but it encodes the subjectivity necessary for a global capitalist system that functions on the flexibility of its workforce. Accumulation in the transnational regime of corporate capitalism requires compliant forms of labor that call for flexible subjectivities among its employees.7 The professional-managerial class is today’s ruling class (i.e., those who own and control finance capital), and they have structured the attitudes and temperaments of workers to suit their needs in the transnational regime of accumulation.

DIVERSITY IN CORPORATE CONSUMERISM Today’s market-driven stylization of race promotes accommodation and assimilation into the neoliberal capitalist system.8 This assimilation into the cultural conditions of neoliberalism registers the fragmentation of a historically grounded and materially based identity. Such fragmentation has helped replace communally based notions of citizenship with a consumer subjectivity that functions in the class interests of free markets and corporate schemes to privatize public space and culture.9 The transformation of citizens into consumers in the capitalist commodity system, Robert McChesney (1998, p. 11) avers, ‘‘produces shopping malls’’ in place of communities. ‘‘The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless’’ (p. 11). The erasure of material histories and relations that comprise social identities and the breakdown of community in consumerbased individualism may be traced to the schizophrenic decentering of ‘‘identity’’ in postmodernity as Fredric Jameson (1983, p. 119) describes it. As human subjectivity in postmodernity is fragmented and dissolved, it betokens the loss of autonomy, self-determination, and identity. So, too, the plurality of emotions that characterize the depth of human consciousness and social identity attenuate and lose coherence (Woodward, 2009, p. 15), with the exception of euphoria and indifference as ‘‘intensities’’ befitting the experience of living in a ‘‘succession of unassimilable instants’’ and consuming

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instantaneous, commercialized images empty of historical and time-centered context (Hebdige, 1996, p. 186). In contrast to the ‘‘joyous’’ and euphoric intensities of consumerism are critical feelings of memory, contradiction, and other historically mediated affects that may register dissent and resistance. In the fetishistic illusion of consumer-based individualism, however, history and memory of past discriminations can be disregarded by a sweet sense of nostalgia in the neoliberal narrative of achieving material success. Numerous advertisements, for instance, commodify the relationships of African Americans with their families, origins, and history. Take, for example, an advertisement for Jeep Grand Cherokee that shows an African-American professional returning home to his parents and humble origins in his sports utility vehicle (Fig. 1). The caption hovering over the modest home of the African-American family

Fig. 1.

Advertisement for Jeep Grand Cherokee. Courtesy of Chrysler LLC.

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reads ‘‘Let Jeep Grand Cherokee Take You Back.’’ The consumer motive of Jeep Grand Cherokee here transforms racial progress into an economic success story of acquisitive individualism. This ad and others like it that stylize the nostalgia for family and communal origins are contemporary examples of corporations that use race and ethnicity to commercialize human feeling and encourage consumer-based individualism. If, as critical theorists have argued, ideology creates knowledge that shapes thought and subjectivity through the organization of social differences,10 then we may see how the affects of consumerism express restrictions that capitalist ideology imposes on critical thought. Consider the euphoria and apathy experienced in consumerism as affects of fragmented consciousness that can vitiate the ability of minorities to express themselves as critical social subjects. These consumer sensations restrict subjectivity to the extent that they deny feelings that articulate material and historical conditions central to the formations and expressions of critical thought – feelings, especially, which express a relational sense of connection to other people and to community necessary for animating social consciousness. In this sense, the limiting sensations of consumerism, which signal the compression of critical thought into an ever-present consumer subjectivity, can foreclose the potential of social differences to shape consciousness, in particular the affects of radical politics that historically structure racial minority formations. I thus want to emphasize that a materialist critique of race and feeling in commodity capitalism is an attempt to analyze ‘‘diversity’’ as the social politics of racial minorities living amid the contradictions of neoliberal globalization in the United States. Under the conditions of fragmented subjectivity in time–space compression (Harvey, 1990, pp. 53–54), for example, the consequences for social diversity are devastating, because if a plurality of historically mediated feelings are necessary for animating diversity, including the emotions that articulate resistance to commodity capitalism and feelings which express ‘‘globalization from below’’ (Appadurai, 2001, p. 3), then the increasing power of consumer-based assimilation over the lives of minorities obscures feelings that corporations cannot or would not want to commodify. This is an emotional restriction that represses the political diversity of minorities to express themselves as critical social subjects. Living in a world that converts experiences and histories into fragments for consumption, human life is subject to forces of time–space compression – forces making people indifferent to minority subjectivities and perspectives that could offer alternatives to universal capitalism and the homogenization of political and cultural choices. As the transnational regime of

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accumulation pivots on technological advancement to ‘‘speed-up’’ the pace of human life in an attempt to maximize profit at ever-faster rates, human beings adjust to the omnipresence of the neoliberal way of life. Accommodating the compression of space and time in neoliberal globalization thus debilitates the ability to construct an alternative social order outside the planetary spread of capitalist production (Harvey, 1990, p. 240). As David Harvey (2001, p. 201) contends, the forces of time–space compression in capitalism preclude time to imagine or construct alternatives other than those forced unthinkingly upon us as we rush to perform our respective professional roles in the name of technological progress and endless capital accumulation. The material organization of production, exchange and consumption rests on and reinforces specific notions of rights and obligations and affects our feelings of alienation and of subordination, our conceptions of power and powerlessness. Even seemingly new avenues for self-expression (multiculturalism being a prime example) are captive to the forces of capital accumulation and the market (for example, love of nature is made to equal ecotourism, and ethnicity is reduced to a matter of restaurants or authentic commodities for market).

However, as the commercialization of the ‘‘love of nature’’ and ‘‘ethnicity’’ shows, the determinate logic of capitalist values stylizes multiculturalism, shifting its focus toward consumption. The forces of time-space compression are both the product and necessary process in corporate consumerism, which cannot thrive without the endless quest for marketing the different and the new. As the dominant culture of corporate consumerism is really a culture about the triumph of neoliberal privatization and acquisitive individualism, human beings exist in a time in which what matters is subjectivity devoid of social particulars such as race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual difference. Queer theorists have examined the problem of a specific type of consumerbased sexual politics called ‘‘homonormativity,’’ which has emerged from neoliberalism. ‘‘Homonormativity is a chameleon-like ideology,’’ Martin Manalansan (2005, p. 142) explains, ‘‘that purports to push for progressive causes such as rights to gay marriage and other ‘activisms,’ but at the same time it creates a depoliticizing effect on queer communities as it rhetorically remaps and recodes freedom and liberation in terms of privacy, domesticity, and consumption.’’11 Today’s drive among many lesbians and gays for joining the ranks of mainstream heterosexual culture evinces a movement away from a genealogy of gay peoplehood rooted in a history of struggle and marginalized community formation. This is a move toward an assimilationist model of free-market consumerism promoting homogeneity in which everyone is culturally ‘‘the same’’ based on inclusion within

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lifestyles of consumerism and privileged class status. Consider, for example, the message implied in an advertisement that appeared The Advocate, arguably America’s most popular lesbian and gay news magazine. The ad features a smiling male couple in business suits, one black and the other white. Captions under the men identify the black man as ‘‘African American’’ and the white man as ‘‘African.’’ However, their relationship is ‘‘appropriately complex,’’ informs another caption under the two men. They are presumably enjoying the good life while consuming a brand of cognac that capitalizes on the contradictory suggestion that a biracial international male couple is somehow both different (‘‘appropriately complex’’ as the ad explains, comparing the two men to the cognac), yet assimilable into global citizenship premised on consuming the ‘‘appropriate’’ transnational product. The ad reduces, in its commodification of the good life, national sexual and racial differences to superficial consumer items. In this neoliberal and homonormative condition of multicultural harmony, the ugly historical specters of African apartheid and U.S. segregation are simply exorcized. Such banishing of history is enacted graphically by labeling the white man ‘‘African’’ and the black man ‘‘American,’’ a gesture reducing the complex racial histories of the two nations to banal irony. The wealth and class status uncritically attributed to black gay men conceals the history of U.S. segregation and slavery, and the de-linking of ‘‘African’’ from blackness disguises the history of apartheid and capital accumulation that would privilege white Africans. The bottom line is, however, that the consumerbased individualism in homonormativity is a global multicultural phenomenon that includes only those who can afford to pay for it, leading to an ‘‘apolitical egalitarianism’’ that demands racial and ethnic self-erasure (Giroux, 1993–1994, p. 8). Now framed as conformity to stylized consumer subjectivity in homonormative ideology, assimilation is itself a commodity that one desires to rid oneself of social and historical differences. As this example of homonormativity in an advertisement for alcohol demonstrates, multinational businesses commodify race and emotion at the expense of social and historical consciousness, thereby rendering unthinkable and unrealizable oppositional alternatives to the expansive movement of capital. The deployment of race and emotion in the stylizing tactics of multinational industry capitalizes on the politics of insurgent multiculturalism, extracting its call for social diversity from its critical-resistance contexts.12 The critical feelings of insurgent multiculturalism – its angry confrontational politics of protest that critique oppressive structures of domination and control – are, consequently, replaced by the indifference or anti-collective sensibility of acquisitive individualism: the logic of today’s

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commodity–structure which both perpetuates and thrives on the feel-good sensations of consumption in neoliberal capitalism. In our present historical moment, the commodification of race and emotion is particularly evident in the corporate appropriation of transnational activism, which transforms the anti-capitalist politics of this activism into the stylized aesthetics of rebellion without a cause, an insurgency whose radial critique and angry protest are neutralized by commercializing it as consumer aesthetics and fashion. Transnational activism has been defined as progressive social movements and other civil society organizations operating across nation–state borders (Piper & Uhlin, 2004, pp. 4–5). Activists in transnational networks work collectively in coordinated international campaigns against international actors, other states, and international institutions. Critical theorists who examine transnational social activism are, in particular, concerned with the ways in which capitalism continues to require the exploitation of racial, ethnic, and gender differences for its profits. In her study of women of color feminism and racialized immigrant women’s culture, Grace Kyungwon Hong (2006) details the process by which global consumerism both causes and maintains the fetishization and exploitation of social differences for migrant women laborers. ‘‘Racialized women – often very young – are the preferred workforce for transnational capital in the contemporary era,’’ Hong writes (p. 108), ‘‘as corporations deliberately exploit and thereby reproduce racialized and gendered differences to more efficiently extract profits.’’ Yet corporations mask the exploitation of these differences for women laborers by commercializing multiculturalism and turning race and gender into stylized commodities. Corporate multiculturalism thus utilizes social differentiation not only to conceal racialized migrant female labor but also to implicitly counteract the transnational social mobilization and activism that have emerged in response to the socio-economic and political processes associated with neoliberal globalization. In neutralizing the affects of collective political consciousness in transnational activism, the commodifying tactics of corporations express, furthermore, a heightened cynicism within the relations of neoliberal capital. In the next section of this chapter, I examine the corporate structuring of cynicism in the production of commodity race and emotion.

CYNICISM AND THE COMMODITY-STRUCTURE Nothing more clearly expresses the neoliberal cannibalization of public life than the blurring of boundaries between institutions that promote social

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justice and corporations that commodify activist politics under the guise of advocating social responsibility. ‘‘Thanks to the sheer imperialist ambition of the corporate project at this moment in history,’’ Naomi Klein (2001) has asserted, ‘‘multinationals have grown so blindlingly rich, so vast in their holdings, so global in their reach, that they have created our coalitions for us.’’ The rise of commodification in corporate advertising is a primary causal factor of cynicism endemic among Americans in our present time of commercializing politics, leaving people to feel disengaged, and demoralized. The anxiety and fear arising from the logic of fragmentation in commodity production, which atomizes community and a sense of the ‘‘coherent self,’’ registers in turn the discourse of corporate consumerism on a global scale. For cynicism is both generated by and instrumental to the perpetuation of the consumer economy and its indeterminate changes. Corporate consumerism turns negative feelings such as cynicism and disaffection into consumer ideals of flexibility and adaptability for a global capitalist world in which sudden and wildly unpredictable changes are the norm, and further, in which the corporate culture that fully administers the globalized world remains invisibly omnipresent. Consider, as another example, the corporate stylization of activist politics in an advertisement for Diesel Company that appeared in fashion magazines such as Maxim and in urban news and entertainment weeklies such as The San Francisco Bay Guardian and The Village Voice. The ad shows a ragtag, multi-ethnic group of young protestors on a city street raising their fists and hoisting placards while carrying an uprooted traffic light. One protestor’s placard reads: ‘‘More Green Traffic Lights.’’ Here the ad’s models mimic the ‘‘hipster’’ look and confrontational street actions of antiglobalization activists who have appeared in the nightly news demonstrating against gatherings of international monetary organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. In captions under the protestors, Diesel commands, in the name of selling their transnationally assembled products, to take ‘‘Action! For Successful Living.’’ Appealing to the typically leftist leanings of those who read alternative urban newspapers, Diesel masks the basic fact that it is trying to sell clothes by telling us we can ‘‘protest, support and act’’ at its website. When visiting the website, readers are confronted with the blinking red and black message: ‘‘This Is a Wake Up Call for the Rebel Inside You!’’ To be a ‘‘rebel’’ for Diesel is presumably to dress like one. The look, not the politics, of angry protestors – and in the case of anti-globalization activists, protestors who are homeless ‘‘street people’’ congregating in urban commercial districts such as San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley’s

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People’s Park, Seattle’s Broadway Avenue, and New York’s Tompkins Square Park – is commodified as a trite fashion statement. Countercultural rebellion and agitation have therefore become the corporate ideology of a neoliberal capitalist era.13 The promotional imagery of Diesel Company, which in its website ‘‘presspack’’ claims to view ‘‘the world as a single, border-less macroculture’’ (Diesel Company Presspack), in effect commodifies and neutralizes the resistance politics of anti-globalization activists with the lame and confusing message of ‘‘More Green Traffic Lights.’’ Do the protestors in this ad thus want more environmentally sound traffic lights? Do they literally want more traffic lights to be painted green or flash more green lights? But why spend time pondering such questions when the ‘‘rebel’’protestors look so cool, the ad implies. Here the reaction to a crisis of faith in political organization and activism is utter banality. Cynicism with the organized mass politics of creating social change is a response that registers the depthlessness of hyper-reality and sensory overload in the consumer culture of U.S. youth. Trying to appeal to socially rebellious youth as an example of marketing counterculture, Diesel’s ad campaign is, at bottom, a banal stylization of transnational activism, rendering environmental and globalization resistance movements devoid of their radical politics. What other implicit benefit do corporations gain in generating and profiting from consumer cynicism? Could the commercial co-optation of progressive activism be the corporate industry’s attempt to disengage itself from charges of violating workers’ rights? Is this co-optation an attempt to conceal the fact that there are no social values in capitalism’s exploitive motive of surplus extraction? How, for instance, might the corporate appropriation of resistance politics relieve consumers of their bad feelings for purchasing products that are assembled by the laboring hands of Third World children? Fredric Jameson has insisted that objectification and reification need to be redefined to take into account ideological shifts in late-capitalist relations, which reflect the erasure of material forces and histories in commodity production. ‘‘The other definition of reification that has been important in recent years,’’ writes Jameson (1991, pp. 314–315), ‘‘is the ‘effacement of the traces of production from the object itself, from the commodity thereby produced. This sees the matter from the standpoint of the consumer: it suggests the kind of guilt people are freed from if they are able not to remember the work that went into their toys and furnishings.’’ In the objectification and reification process of commodity capitalism, in other words, how is it possible to feel guilt, express radical critique, and effect social change if human beings now

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live under conditions in which they are incapable of knowing themselves as commodities, and further, if they exist in cynical denial of the totalizing forces of capitalist production which condition labor for exploitive abstraction? It seems that the elision of critical thought – in particular, the effacement of empathy people might feel for one another when identifying themselves and each other as exploited objects of commodification – is intrinsic to the structuring principle of today’s global commodity-structure. Reification (Bewes, 2002, p. 4), as ‘‘the process in which ‘thing-hood’ becomes the standard of objective reality’’ that fragments components of social life, facilitates the proliferation of capitalist ideology on a global scale. This is to say, the turning of human relations into a thing, which for Georg Luka´cs (1971, p. 83) denoted ‘‘phantom objectivity,’’14 has taken on the character of a force that controls human beings the world over. The ideology of neoliberal globalization, then, as deployed through the privatization of public space and financial deregulation in the United States, has gained the upper hand in capitalism, atomizing historically constructed communal relations from urban ethnic enclaves to agrarian townships, making people feel the need to fend for themselves, insofar as government, under the weakened and inadequate auspices of the nation–state to provide a welfare safety net for its citizens, has largely functioned to protect private and corporate interests. In effect, the undermining of public welfare through the nation–state’s devotion to protecting private interests has given corporations the rights of personhood. Entitled to the constitutional rights of free speech, privacy, and equal protection under the law, multinational corporations are encouraged by their culturally sanctioned recognition as ‘‘persons’’ to trump the rights of individual citizens and their communities. The result of such corporate anthropomorphizing, which inevitably dehumanizes people, is the prevailing sense of hopelessness and cynicism in the contemporary politics of U.S. public life. Thriving on the attenuation of nations to control global flows of capital and defend its citizenry from the profit motive of corporations that concentrate capital in the hands of an elite,15 the capitalist world system engenders immense contradictions. Income disparities, class stratification, poverty, social injustice, and the diasporic spread of people searching for work are the human consequences of a laissez-faire global economy.16 Arising from the fragmentation of a transnational information society in economic globalization, in which it is difficult to find a center and the world feels much smaller from the felt experience of time as shorter and faster (Kintz, 1997, p. 55), is the sense that Earth is wobbling out of control. Implacable distress is, for instance, an affective condition of workers who

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feel terrible insecurity in the midst of an exploitive system of ‘‘flexible’’ labor that renders tens of thousands jobless in a matter of weeks or days. As capitalism generates a lot of insecurity, because it is always uneven and crisis-prone (Harvey, 2001, p. 122), the harsh emotional underside of globalization is fear and anxiety. Around the world is a palpable malaise because of indeterminacy and fragmentation in the cultural logic of global capital. In the United States, apathy and cynicism among its depoliticized citizens are the byproducts of a fractured and weakened democracy in which there is no alternative but a corporate hegemony. Furthermore, anxiety about safety prevails in an ever more insecure and unsure society, in which the safe home in a consumer culture of comfort enable a national tendency not to be ‘‘concerned about the truly fearsome aspects of contemporary American society, such as rising health care and education costs and domestic gun violence’’ (Sturken, 2007, p. 90). Flourishing on the motive of profit extraction, global consumerism both generates and is maintained by fear and anxiety for a world in which no one seems to be in control, save for the corporations with little or no commitment to local peoples and their communities. Consequently, the fear and unease that prevail in capitalism and which impel assimilation into global consumer culture are, in turn, obscured by euphoria and indifference: global capital’s affect, in other words, which the decentering and disintegration of identity and community generates. Cynicism, moreover, in an age of global capital is a contradictory reaction to the commodification of human feeling that registers disillusion with political reality: the collapse of confidence in the democratic process. In conclusion, I emphasize the argument that social fragmentation and cynicism are affective features in the cultural politics of neoliberalism. In this respect, the decentering of progressive humanism expresses skepticism in neoliberalism that undermines critical thought necessary in the humanist project to strive for an egalitarian society. The disintegration of a credible vision for an alternative society surrenders to neoliberalism. To capitulate the social politics of progressive humanism to a neoliberal capitalist order is to accommodate exploitation and inequality as normalized contradictions in everyday life. By focusing on the politics of emotion through materialist analysis, this essay has aimed to develop a critique of neoliberalism that extends social criticism into the study of racial subjectivity predicated on understanding how feelings are simultaneously engendered and required by capitalism. In doing so, this essay argues for a new approach to contemporary critiques of minority discourse and race theory. By taking seriously the political

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economy of emotions in racial identity and subjectivity, critical theorists come to know more effectively the material and historical conditions of minorities in commodified society. This engagement in ideology critique not only reveals contemporary underlying causal mechanisms of racial exploitation but also sheds critical light on new subjectivities and identities that capitalism, in the present neoliberal moment, both generates and needs for expansion around the world. As this essay has demonstrated, negative feelings are important for maintaining the social violence and material inequalities of capitalism. These feelings are important to neutralize opposition and maintain the status quo of the global financial system, inasmuch as they articulate criticism of it.

NOTES 1. For more on the ‘‘harsh underside’’ of capitalism as the spread of inequality in globalization, see Comaroff and Comaroff (2001). 2. Duggan’s (2003, p. 3) concern is to show how neoliberalism has succeeded in redistributing resources upward and, in the process, shrinking democratic public culture insofar as it ‘‘organizes material and political life in terms of race, gender, and sexuality as well as economic class and nationality, or ethnicity and religion.’’ Simultaneously, neoliberalism obscures and mystifies its own cultural politics, ‘‘hiding stark inequalities of wealth and power and of class, race, gender, and sexuality across nation-states as well as within them’’ (p. 5). 3. As Pierre Bourdieu (1998, p. 95) suggests, we might understand neoliberalism as political discourse that dominates economic relations and determines our social way of life within these relations. Neoliberalism ‘‘is a ‘strong discourse’ which is so strong and so hard to fight because it has behind it all the powers of a world of power relations which it helps to make as it is, in particular by orienting the economic choices of those who dominate economic relations and so adding its own – specifically symbolic – force to those power relations.’’ 4. As Paul Gilroy (2000, p. 22) points out in his critique of the air-brushed faces of black models on billboards and television screens, ‘‘the ubiquity and prominence currently accorded to exceptionally beautiful and glamorous but nonetheless racialized bodies do nothing to change the everyday forms of racial hierarchy. The historic associations of blackness with infrahumanity, brutality, crime, idleness, excessive threatening fertility, and so on remain undisturbed.’’ 5. See also Giroux’s (1997, p. 15) critique of the ‘‘new world order’’ as a culture in which ‘‘citizenship has little to do with social responsibility and everything to do with creating consuming subjects.’’ 6. Raymond Williams (1993, p. 335) argues that advertising is the ‘‘magic’’ of transforming commodities into glamorous signs for social and personal meaning. 7. Transnational advertisements that commodify racial identity thus suggest a worker and consumer tautology appropriate for our global capitalist era. If the image of stylized race in transnational marketing promotes and sells products, it also

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advertises flexible subjectivity as a commodity through which one can claim higher social status and marketable skills in a globalized economy (Rouse, 1995, p. 389). 8. Here I am referring to Linda Kintz’s (1997, pp. 60–61) reading of U.S. ‘‘popular conservatism’’ as traditional conservatism. Kintz sees traditional conservatism as reconstructed by the postmodern merging of free-market capitalism with right-wing Christian fundamentalism. Lawrence Grossberg (1992, p. 282) also examines popular conservatism as the rise of ‘‘the new conservatism,’’ whose politics are based on a reaction against ‘‘the constant deconstructive cynicism of the postmodern sensibility.’’ 9. Pierre Bourdieu (1998, p. 43) argues that the neoliberal privatization of the public domain is characteristic of a ‘‘conservative revolution’’ in capitalism. Neoliberalism is the ideology of a conservative ‘‘sociodicy’’ that perpetuates such social norms of the global economy as flexible accumulation and privatization as the naturalized expansion of capital. This ‘‘new conservative revolution,’’ writes Bourdieu, ‘‘sets up the norm of all practices, and therefore as ideal rules, the real regularities of the economic world abandoned to its own logic, the so-called law of the market. It ratifies and glorifies the reign of what are called the financial markets, in other words the return to a kind of radical capitalism, with no other law than that of maximum profit, an unfettered capitalism without any disguise, but rationalized, pushed to the limit of its economic efficacy by the introduction of modern forms of domination, such as ‘business administration’, and techniques of manipulation, such as market research and advertising’’ (p. 35). 10. ‘‘[I]deology offers ways of knowing,’’ according to Rosemary Hennessy (2001, p. 19), ‘‘that profoundly shape identity through the organization of social differences.’’ 11. See also Lisa Duggan (2003, pp. 50 and 65) who identifies homonormativity as a reactionary response to the privatizing operative of neoliberal politics that coalesced in the 1990s. 12. Similarly Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1994, pp. 46–47) contend that liberals who advocate free-market celebrations of multiculturalism neutralize an originary radical multiculturalism, which emphasizes restructuring relations of power. The ‘‘well-behaved ‘diversity’’’ in a ‘‘corporate-managed United-Colors-of-Benetton’’ pluralism, Shohat and Stam maintain, defangs the ability of insurgent multiculturalism to challenge hierarchical social relations that limit access to material human needs and resources. 13. ‘‘Today corporate antinomianism is the emphatic message of nearly every new business text,’’ Thomas Frank (1997, pp. 31–45) maintains. ‘‘Capitalism, at least as it is envisioned by the best-selling management handbooks, is no longer about enforcing Order, but destroying it. ‘Revolution,’ once the totemic catchphrase of the counterculture, has become the totemic catchphrase of boomer-as-capitalist’’ (p. 38). 14. The concept of ‘‘phantom objectivity’’ is central to Luka´cs’s theory of reification as ‘‘the essence of the commodity-structure.’’ 15. Pierre Bourdieu (1998, p. 38), for example, decries neoliberal globalization as the domination of a small number of wealthy countries over the whole set of national financial markets. This international capital market, Bourdieu maintains, ‘‘tends to reduce the autonomy of the national capital markets, and in particular to prevent nation-states from manipulating exchange rates and interest rates, which are increasingly determined by a power concentrated in the hands of a small number of countries’’ (pp. 38–39).

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16. Zygmunt Bauman (1998) has examined the predicaments, privileges, and enforced limitations of mobility and migration that are consequent to the social divisions in global capitalism. For compelling examinations of global capital’s toll on Third World people see Sassen (1998), Amin (1997), and the essays in Mander and Goldsmith (1996).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful for the comments I received from C. Richard King. Some of the materials in this chapter have also appeared in Asian North American Identities: Beyond the Hyphen, ed. Eleanor Ty and Donald C. Goellnicht (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).

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THE PRINCESS AND THE SUV: BRAND IMAGES OF NATIVE AMERICANS AS COMMODIFIED RACISM Debra Merskin If you are among the 99% non-Indian population, and if the only source of information you have about Americans Indians comes from product packages, advertising, and mass media portrayals, what would you conclude about the physical, emotional, and intellectual characteristics of indigenous North Americans? Bloodthirsty savages? Children of nature? Indian princesses? Defilers of white virgins? These are a few of the persistent stereotypes used in the media, particularly in advertising and product branding, that feature images and attributes of Native Americans. Sue Bee Honey, Land O’Lakes dairy products, and Jeep Cherokee are contemporary examples of the commodification of racist representations. How and why pictorial metaphors of North American Indians on commercially produced product labels and promotions create and perpetuate commodified stereotypes is the focus of this chapter. In particular, I view these representations in and on consumer goods as a lens through which we can see how race is commodified and how stereotypes are reified. McCracken’s Meaning Transfer Model (1993) and Barthes’ (1972) semiotic analysis serve as the framework and method of analysis for four illustrative national brands. I expand on McCracken’s framework by

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acknowledging the role of the viewer in the process and add a reinforcement loop from the consumer back to the culture in which these stereotypes are constructed, experienced, and recirculated through the American (and global) system of goods and services. Because they are so common and everyday, these products become carriers of stereotypical, racist information that appears so normal and natural in American culture, they largely go unquestioned thereby serving as mechanisms of commodified racism. I argue branding imbues certain products with racialized signifiers. Furthermore, such portrayals support a White racist ideology that benefits from the construction and maintenance of ‘‘Other’’ by incorporating racist tropes into commodities. In the following sections, I briefly present the human developmental process and representational politics that underlie stereotyping in general and the mass media in particular. This is followed by a discussion of the development of stereotypes of Native Americans, leading to an analysis of four national brands that illustrate how the commodification of race works hand in hand with branding to support a system of physical and ideological dominance.

CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT During early childhood, Indians and non-Indians learn a definition of ‘‘Indianness’’ (Merskin, 1998, p. 159). Around 18 months of age, human beings begin to recognize themselves as distinct and separate from their mothers and others (Lacan, 1977). By age 6, most attributes of personality formation are already established (Biber, 1984). The content of the information that consciously and unconsciously reaches children is critical for the formation of a healthy, grounded sense of self and respect for others. Today, in the absence of personal interaction with an indigenous person, non-Indian perceptions inevitably come from other sources. These mental images, the ‘‘pictures in our heads’’ as Lippmann (1922/1961, p. 33) calls them, come from parents, teachers, textbooks, movies, television programs, cartoons, songs, commercials, art, and product logos. American Indian images, music, and names have, since the beginning of the 20th century, been incorporated into many American advertising campaigns and marketing efforts, demarcating and consuming Indian as exotic ‘‘Other’’ in the popular imagination (Merskin, 1998). Whereas a century ago sheet music covers and patent medicine bottles featured ‘‘coppery, feather-topped visage of the Indian’’ (Larson, 1937, p. 338), today’s Land O’ Lake’s butter boxes

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display a doe-eyed, buckskin-clad Indian ‘‘princess.’’ The fact that there never were Indian ‘‘princesses’’ (a European concept), and most Indians do not have the kind of European features and social ‘‘availability’’ that trade characters do, goes largely unquestioned. These stereotypes are pervasive, but not necessarily consistent, varying over time and place from the ‘‘artificially idealistic’’ (noble savage) to images of ‘‘mystical environmentalists or uneducated, alcoholic bingo-players confined to reservations’’ (Mihesuah, 1996, p. 9). Today, a trip down the grocery store aisle still reveals ice cream bars, beef jerky, corn meal, baking powder, malt liquor, butter, honey, sugar, sour cream, chewing tobacco packages, and a plethora of other products emblazoned with images of American Indians. To discern how labels on products and brand names reinforce long-held stereotypical beliefs, we must consider embedded ideological beliefs that perpetuate and reinforce this process.

REPRESENTATIONAL POLITICS As sources of learning, the mass media, in general, and advertising, in particular, are powerful sites of cultural (re)production where dominant (White, male) beliefs about race, ethnicity, sex, and gender (among other ‘‘isms’’) are reinforced and recirculated. An ideology of White/Anglo racial superiority is maintained in part using stereotypes designed to construct an ‘‘Other,’’ which is regarded as lesser than the declared and constructed ideal. Stereotypes, as hegemonic tools, reduce individuals to a single, monolithic, one-dimensional type that appears, and is presented as, natural and normal as they fit into ideological patterns of representations that serve, among other functions, to establish ‘‘in-group categorizations of outgroups’’ (Ramı´ rez Berg, 1990, p. 294). Hegemonic beliefs and values are articulated through the construction, maintenance, and perpetuation of stereotypes that get hold of the few simple, vivid, memorable, easily grasped, and widely recognized characteristics about a person, reduce everything about the person to those traits, exaggerate and simplify them, and fix them without change or development to eternity. (Hall, 1997, p. 258)

Stereotyping ‘‘puts people in boxes and creates images that result in false presumptions accepted as inconvertible truths’’ (Oboler, 1998, p. 27). Stereotypes persist because ‘‘they fulfill important identity needs for the dominant culture’’ thereby maintaining the status quo and preserving

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hegemony (Mastro & Behm-Morawitz, 2005, p. 112). Rather than using physical force, this social control strategy, or hegemony, is psychological, requiring the consent of those governed. Consent is evident in the normalization of stereotypical, one-dimensional representations that under other circumstances would seem, at the least, inappropriate and misleading if not all together dangerous and dehumanizing. The consistency of stereotypical portrayals is also key to their longevity as presentation of the same or similar stereotypes is likely to add credibility to the portrayals as they take on an aura of naturalness and truth. Hence, this naturalization, or as Hall (1997) refers to it, ‘‘articulation,’’ is reified through the lack of contradictory images and information and is apparent in the story-telling and myth-supporting capabilities of the mass media. The stories the media tell are based on deeply entrenched cultural beliefs and values that cultivate and build support for a system of symbolic representation that benefits the financial, cultural, economic, and social interests of the ruling elite through the reinforcement of racialized heteronormative beliefs and values. A related concept and partial explanation for the effectiveness of a mediated hegemonic system of social control is Accumulation Theory (DeFleur & Dennis, 1998). This theory predicts that if the mass media, including advertising, present information in ways that are consistent, persistent, and corroborated, it will have long-term, powerful effects. Stereotyping, as a media effect, gains power and credibility the longer and more regularly the same information is presented, in the same way, to the same audiences. These (re)presentations remain largely unchallenged so that carefully cultivated cultural constructions of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender become normalized in the American popular imagination. Through the use of specific signs and symbols, articulated in particular words and images, racial/ethnic and sexual stereotypes draw strength from a shared cultural reservoir of thought-to-be-truths about particular groups of people. Based on a history of cultural, social, and psychological infusion of one-dimensional and distorted presentations of qualities (or lack thereof), these ‘‘truths’’ serve the interests of those in power who aim to retain their status and resources. The maintenance of stereotypical beliefs also satisfies the human need for psychological equilibrium and order, finding support and reinforcement in ideology that distinguishes an ‘‘us’’ from a symbolic ‘‘them.’’ Defined as ‘‘typical properties of the ‘social mind’ of the group’’ (van Dijk, 1996, p. 9), ideologies provide a frame of reference for understanding the world. Racist ideology functions psychologically, socially, and politically to reproduce racism by legitimating social inequalities, thereby justifying racially or

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ethnically constructed differences. Racist ideology serves three primary purposes, according to van Dijk: (1) it organizes specific social attitudes into an evaluative framework for perceiving otherness, (2) it provides the basis for ‘‘coordinated solidarity and action among whites’’ (p. 26), and (3) it defines racial and ethnic identity of the dominant group. These beliefs and practices are thereby articulated in the production and distribution of racist discourse, the result of which, in this study, ‘‘is the creation of distance between the ‘real’ Indian and a manufactured replica of an Indian stereotype’’ (Staurowsky, 1998, p. 304). Racial and ethnic images, part of American advertising for more than a century, were created in supposedly ‘‘less enlightened times’’ (Graham, 1993, p. 35). These one-dimensional images became deeply entrenched in American popular culture and thought and have not disappeared. Instead, they have become naturalized into our visual environment. This system of representation has thereby become a ‘‘stable cultural convention y taught and learned by members of y society’’ (Kates & Shaw-Garlock, 1999, p. 34). Goings’ (1994) study of African American stereotypes and Black collectibles and memorabilia from the 1880s to the 1950s is a useful analogy for understanding the construction of Native American stereotypes in popular culture. So-called collectible items such as salt and pepper shakers, trade cards, and sheet music with images of happy Sambos, plump mammies, and wide-eyed pickaninnies served as nonverbal articulations of racism made manifest in everyday goods. By exaggerating the physical features of African American men and women and making them comical, and powerless, seemingly banal household objects reinforced beliefs about the place of Blacks in American society. Aunt Jemima, the roly-poly mammy, and Uncle Rastus, the happy chef slave on the Cream of Wheat box, ironically remain with us today. Both were and are used to help make Whites feel more comfortable with, and less guilty about, maintenance of distinctions based on race well after Reconstruction. These items were meant for daily use, hence constantly circulated, subtly reinforcing stereotypical beliefs, later articulated in mass-produced goods. Leonard (2005, p. 14) notes, ‘‘From pancakes and breakfast cereal to alcoholic beverages and sports apparel, businesses have historically used a palpable blackness defined by either clownish qualities or physical control to draw in white consumers.’’ Goings (1994, p. xix) adds It is important to note Black memorabilia are figures from white American history. White Americans developed the stereotypes; white Americans produced the collectibles; and white American manufacturers and advertisers disseminated both the images and the objects to a white audience.

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Similarly, Hall (1997) argues that a central component of British imperial representations of Black people was the theme of non-Christian savages requiring civilizing by British missionaries and adventurers. These images were subsequently transformed into what he calls ‘‘commodity racism,’’ whereby ‘‘images of colonial conquest were stamped on soap boxes y biscuit tins, whisky bottles, tea tins and chocolate bar’’ (p. 240). At the height of colonization, physical annihilation and oppression gradually attached ‘‘imperial conquest to advertised images of domestic products,’’ placing scientific racism alongside the rise in consumerism (Roediger, 2002, p. 52).

DEFINING INDIANNESS Whereas ‘‘Little Black Sambo’’ tales reinforced the construction of racist beliefs about Blacks, songs such as ‘‘Ten Little Indians’’ or ‘‘Cowboy and Indian’’ games similarly framed Indian otherness in the White mind. Moreover, ‘‘the essence of the white image of the Indian has been the definition of American Indians in fact and in fancy as a separate and single other. Whether evaluated as noble or ignoble, whether seen as exotic or downgraded, the Indian as image was always alien to white’’ (Berkhofer, 1979, p. xv). Context is key. Anti-Indian sentiments did not begin with the subjugation and dislocation efforts of the 1800s. Rather, three major economic, social, and political movements or ‘‘fateful encounters’’ (Goings, 1994, p. 332) mark points in time when the ‘‘West encountered’’ Indian people, ‘‘giving rise to an avalanche of popular representations based on the marking of racial difference’’ (p. 332). First, 15th century contact between European traders and explorers and the contamination and conquest of indigenous peoples on the North American continent. Second, European colonization of the Americas and the scramble for control of territories, markets, and raw materials, and third, pre– and post–Civil War migrations from the eastern United States to the west. This cumulative evolution leads to the present with entrenched stereotypical representations resulting in legal, medical, economic, and educational disparities. White images of Native Americans were similarly constructed through children’s games, toys, tales, art, sculpture, and theater of the 1800s. The cigar store Indian, for example, presents the stoic, static noble savage, with a hand extended and offering, simultaneously ‘‘guarding’’ the entrance and exit to the store and complying with White rules. Similarly, the Indian ‘‘princess’’ conveys natural, wholesome, virginity, and freshness.

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Thus, in the case of Native American portrayals, the wide array of individual qualities, experiences, histories, and characteristics are truncated by stereotyping into a single Pan-Indian identity based on a unilateral conception of ‘‘Indianness’’ (Merskin, 1998, p. 159). Consistently repeated representations have power as ‘‘these are the ideas we have been hearing for a long time and that we’ve ended up believing out of truth, custom, or repetition’’ (Da´vila, 2001, p. 56). In the 19th and 20th centuries, American Southwest and Niagara Falls tourism, as two examples, cashed in on the commodification of indigenous cultures as both spectacle and souvenir (Dubinsky, 1999). The Native community near Niagara Falls, for example, made available the spectacle of race because their lived experience often disappointed tourists in whose minds ‘‘Indians’’ were supposed to be anachronistically suspended. The simultaneous sales of fake ‘‘Indian’’ artifacts and contempt for Indians-as-Other – culminated in romanticization of, enchantment with, and appropriation of the cultural trappings of the other or, as Rosaldo (1989, p. 109) calls them, ‘‘imperialist nostalgia.’’ This so-called kitsch reinscribed the power relations between triumphing tourist and subordinate Other. The reading of a sexually alluring Native woman into the Falls was a version of the eroticization of the unfamiliar, the feminization of Nature, common among European explorers and adventurers. (Dubinsky, 1999, p. 14)

While not in possession of this male gaze, female tourists, according to Dubinsky (1999, p. 14), ‘‘were no different from male tourists in their disdain for the racialized and economically marginalized others whose subservient labor made the very experience of tourism possible.’’ As this example shows, these portrayals are consistent and persistent across media. Taken together, these studies suggest historically constructed images of and beliefs about American Indians are the core of stereotypical thinking and have been smoothly and easily translated into product images in a way that appears normal and natural and is at the root of commodified racism.

ADVERTISING, BRANDING, AND COMMODITY RACISM To every advertisement they see or hear, people bring a shared set of beliefs that serve as frames of reference for understanding the world around them. Beyond the obvious selling function, advertising images are about making meaning. Ads must ‘‘take into account not only the inherent qualities and

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attributes of the products they are trying to sell, but also the way in which they can make those properties mean something to us’’ (Williamson, 1978, p. 12). Barthes (1972) describes these articulations as myth, as ‘‘a type of speech’’ or mode of signification conveyed by discourse consisting of many possible modes of representation including, but not limited to, writing, photography, publicity, and advertising. Myth described by the process of semiology ‘‘postulates a relation between two terms, a signifier and a signified’’ (p. 112). The correlation of the terms signifier, signified, and sign describes how associative meaning is made. What is experienced in an advertisement or product label are basic elements composed of linguistic signs (words) and iconic signs (visuals). Barthes uses a rose, for example, as a symbol of passion. Roses are not passion per se, but rather the roses (signifier) plus the concept of passion (signified) result in roses (sign). He states ‘‘the signifier is empty, the sign is full, it is a meaning’’ (p. 113). An example using race is the ‘‘savage’’ stereotype as mascot for the Florida State Seminoles football team or the University of Illinois Fighting Illini. The representation of an evil, angry generic Indian drawn from literary and photographic sources of earlier times, suggests the savage (signified) has an immediate, obvious connection to the product – football and sports (King, 2001, 1998). However, savage-as-signifier of death, vengeance, evil, and rage, when placed on a t-shirt (sign), transfers meaning to the otherwise ambiguous product. The sign is formed at the intersection between the image, brand name, and meaning system articulated in a particular product. Quite simply, a sign, whether ‘‘object, word, or picture,’’ has a ‘‘particular meaning to a person or group of people. It is neither the thing nor the meaning alone, but the two together’’ (Williamson, 1978, p. 17). So, to White consumers, the primary target audience, the product and image make sense, based on a collective history of defining Indian people in a onedimensional way. When these views are not contradicted by other information, or alternative views are not provided, the stereotypes persist, bearing full of hegemonic potential.

Branding McCracken (1993, p. 125) defines a brand as a ‘‘bundle or container of meaning.’’ He expanded on the Barthesian analysis and developed a framework for understanding the cultural relationship brands have within society. For example, a brand can have gendered meaning (maleness/ femaleness), social standing (status), nationality (country meaning), and

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ethnicity/race (multicultural meaning). A brand can also stand for notions of tradition, trustworthiness, purity, family, nature, and so on. McCracken uses the Marlboro man as an example of these components with which a simple red and white box came to signify freedom, satisfaction, competence, maleness, and a quintessentially American, Western character. The product becomes part of the constellation of meanings that surround it and thereby ‘‘soaks up’’ meanings. When the rugged Marlboro man is situated on his horse, on the open plain, almost always alone, the meaning constellation becomes clear: he is freedom, love of the outdoors, release from the confines of industrialized society, he is a ‘‘real man,’’ self-sufficient and individualistic. The meanings become part of a theme comprised of prototypical content while simultaneously being ‘‘idealizations and not reality itself ’’ (Schmitt & Simonson, 1997, p. 124). McCracken’s Meaning Transfer model shows how brands assume meaning through advertising. Advertisements as vehicles of branding are used to boost the commodity value of product names by connecting them to images that resonate with the social and cultural values of a society. These images are loaded with established ideological assumptions that, when attached to a brand, create the commodity sign. Tools of branding are thereby used to draw upon and create a particular image in the mind of the consumer. Advertising and branding are mechanisms through which visual and verbal discourse is distributed and ‘‘all successful brands have an underlying cognitive value y a cluster of attributes and associations that consumers connect to the brand name’’ (Ellwood, 2002, p. 71). Consistently, the American advertising industry has successfully employed racist ‘‘constructs and deploy[ed] racialized tropes and images in its efforts to sell a vision’’ (Leonard, 2005, 15). According to van Dijk (1996, p. 267), this pattern often serves to present an US versus THEM dichotomy, with US being White, ‘‘positive, tolerant, modern,’’ and THEM being minorities who are ‘‘problematic, deviant and threatening.’’ Hence, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior that are racist serve to support a dominant ideology that focuses on difference and separatism.

Commodity Racism An explanation for the persistent use of these images is found in the power and persuasiveness of popular culture representations. Simply put, they work. At the end of the 19th century, scientific racism transmogrified into commodity racism. Whereas scientific racism is ‘‘embodied in

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anthropological, scientific, and medical journals, travel writing and ethnographies,’’ commodity racism, while also reflecting the narrative of white racial superiority, is translated into ‘‘mass produced consumer spectacles’’ (McClintock, 1995, p. 33). This was initially accomplished through photography. Raced bodies in 19th century ads, just like idealized White female bodies, were presented as decoration and illustration and ‘‘figured not as historic agents but as frames for the community, valued for exhibition alone’’ (p. 223). Just as pseudo-scientific information provides support and rationale for male ‘‘superiority,’’ so too photography. Advertising provides ‘‘evidence’’ of Native ‘‘inferiority’’ without the requirement of literacy. Regarded as a ‘‘dying race,’’ Native Americans were romanticized reminders of America’s past (Domash, 2004, p. 7). Products such as Ivory Snow advertised using stereotypical dark caricatures designed to demonstrate how effective the soap was in washing away ‘‘ignorance and war,’’ thereby fixing categories of difference between White and other cultures (p. 8). By fetishizing the product, in this case soap, the advertising promised ‘‘spiritual salvation and regeneration through commodity consumption’’ (McClintock, 1995, p. 211) and accomplished this by employing ‘‘racialized notions of empire’’ with images of removing, washing away darkness, blackness, and ‘‘color’’ (Mansvelt, 2005, p. 39). The Pears soap campaign of the time became famous for images of the blackness of little black boys washing away by using the soap, ‘‘as if magically erasing the racial degeneration of blackness’’ (Darian-Smith, 2002, p. 186). Two ‘‘dialectally related forms of consciousness – scientific and commodity racism’’ – are tied to the transference of oppressive energy. The first is closely related to Said’s (1978) concept of Orientalism and Foucault’s (1977) colonial ‘‘power-knowledge’’ paradigm wherein intellectual colonization is also tool of oppression, one that presupposes the role of ‘‘fiduciary of all knowledge’’ (Doxater, 2004, p. 618). The second occurred ‘‘in the specific forms of advertising and photography, the imperial Exhibitions, and the museum movement’’ (McClintock, 1995, p. 33). This form of racial narrative demonstrated the transition of ‘‘the narrative of imperial Progress into mass-produced spectacle’’ (p. 33) because ‘‘advertising translated things into a fantasy visual display consisting of signs and symbols’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 333). This process moved imperialist discourse from the arena of scientific publications and clubs to that of the commercial and domestic spheres. McClintock (1995, p. 220) shows how commodity racism ‘‘was not just reflective of how the larger society’s racism showed up in ads but also deeply constitutive of the very ways in which Whites connected race, pleasure, and service.’’ A commodity occurs ‘‘on the threshold between culture and

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commerce, confusing the supposedly sacrosanct boundaries between aesthetics and economy, money and art’’ (p. 212). The resultant images and text draw upon the ‘‘collective unconscious’’ residing in a symbolic reservoir that revitalizes the latent racist point of view that exists just below the surface of conscious memory (Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science, Shamdasani, 2003, p. 340). At the same time, the advertising industry discovered that by manipulating ‘‘the semiotic space’’ around a commodity, it simultaneously manipulated the ‘‘unconscious as a public space’’ (McClintock, 1995, p. 213). In this way, Native American portrayals served as a frame valued for their ability to do the associative work between signifier and signified. Semiotics provides the method with which we can explore the signs and symbols used to tease out the process of signification by doing a close reading of them as cultural text. Thus, four currently available national products (Land O’Lakes dairy products, Sue Bee Honey, Big Chief [Michigan] Sugar, and Crazy Horse Malt Liquor) are used to illustrate the racial commodification process, two featuring men and two featuring women. The Land O’Lakes Maiden Although not the first national manufacturer to draw on the mystique of Indianness (that honor goes to Redman Tobacco in 1904), Land O’Lakes continues to be perhaps the most prominent. In 1921, the Minnesota Cooperative Creameries Association opened for business in Arden Hills, Minnesota. This company served as the central shipping agent for a small group of small, farmer-owned dairy cooperatives (Morgan, 1986, p. 63). In 1924, the group wanted a different name and solicited ideas from farmers. Two came up with the winning name Land O’Lakes, ‘‘a tribute to Minnesota’s thousands of sparkling lakes.’’ Until recently, the corporate Web site (www.landolakes.com) opened with a photograph of a quiet lake amid pine trees and blue sky (Merskin, 2001, p. 164). The copy under the image read: Welcome to Land O’Lakes. A land unlike anywhere else on earth. A special place filled with clear, spring-fed lakes. Rivers and streams that dance to their own rhythms through rich, fertile fields. It’s the land we call home. And from it has flowed the bounty and goodness we bring to you, our neighbors and friends (Land O’ Lakes, 2000).

In addition, the text tells us, ‘‘The now famous Indian maiden was also created during the search for a brand name and trademark. Because the regions of Minnesota and Wisconsin were the legendary lands of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, the idea of an Indian maiden took form’’ (Land O’Lakes).

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A painting was sent to the company of an Indian maiden facing the viewer, holding a butter carton with a background filled with lakes, pines, flowers, and grazing cows. Today, the home page opens with recipe information, monthly updates, and the headline image of the classic butter-box maiden and the text ‘‘Where simple goodness begins.’’ At the Land O’Lakes corporate link, the director of communications includes a statement about the maiden image, where he agrees the logo, the ‘‘Indian Maiden,’’ has powerful connotations (Land O’Lakes). Hardly changed since its introduction in the 1920s, he says Land O’Lakes has built on the ‘‘symbolism of the purity of the products’’ (Burnham, 1992). The company ‘‘thought the Indian maiden would be a good image. She represents Hiawatha and the Land of Gitchygoomee and the names of Midwest towns and streets have their roots in the American Indian population’’ (Burnham, 1992). The signifier is thereby the product, be it butter, sour cream, or other Land O’Lakes products, and the motto ‘‘simple goodness.’’ The Indian woman on the package is associated with youth, innocence, nature, and purity. The result is the generic ‘‘Indian maiden.’’ Subsequently, the qualities stereotypically associated with this beaded, buckskinned, doe-eyed young woman are transferred to the company’s products. Green’s (1993) ‘‘noble savage’’ image is extended to include the female stereotype. Sue Bee Honey The Sioux Honey Association, based in Sioux City, Iowa, is a cooperative of honey producers, yielding 40 million pounds of honey annually (Sioux Honey). Corporate communications describe a change of the product name in 1964 from Sioux Bee to Sue Bee, ‘‘to reflect the correct pronunciation of the name’’ (Sioux Honey). The brand name and image are reinforced on trucks (both real and toy), on the bottles and jars in which the honey is sold, and through collectibles such as coffee mugs and recipe books. Sue Bee Honey also draws upon the child-of-nature imagery in an attempt to imbue qualities of purity into their products. If we were to view Sue Bee in her full form (as she is shown on many specialty items such as mugs, glasses, and jars), we would see that she is an Indian maiden on top, with braided hair and headband, and a bee below the waist. Changing the spelling of her name from ‘‘Sioux Bee’’ to ‘‘Sue Bee’’ could be interpreted in various ways, possibly, as a matter of pronunciation as the company asserts, or as an effort to draw attention away from the savage imagery stereotypically attributed to members of this tribe and toward the little-girlishness of the image. In this case, the product is honey, a paradisiacal product, traditionally associated

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with trees and forests and natural places. The homepage for Sue Bee Honey opens with the image of ‘‘Sue’’ and the words ‘‘Pure Delight. Mornings are sweeter with natural, pure Sue Bee Honey. The one more Americans pick’’ (Sioux Honey). The association of purity, virginity, availability, and naturalness works seamlessly with the girl child Indian stereotype. By placing the girl-bee on the package of honey, consumers can associate the innocence, purity, and naturalness attributed to stereotypical Native American females with the quality of the product. In the tradition of Pocahontas and Sacajawea, both the Land O’Lakes and the Sue Bee maidens symbolize innocence, purity, and virginity of children of nature. The maiden image signifies a female ‘‘Indianness’’ (Merskin, 1998, p. 159). She is childlike, as she happily offers up perhaps honey or butter (or herself) that ‘‘is as pure and healthy as she is’’ (Dotz & Morton, 1996, p. 11). The maiden’s image is used to represent attempts to embody nature, and, by association, this can be accomplished through the healthy, wholesome products of Land O’Lakes. Both images are encoded with socially constructed meanings about female Indian sexuality, purity, and nature, reinforcing the ‘‘proper place’’ of the subservient Native Woman: on her knees, legless, offering a pelvic honey pot or stick of butter for the taking. Michigan Sugar Company Founded in 1906, the Michigan Sugar Company (http://www.michigansugar. com) processes approximately 4% of U.S. beet production into sugar (granulated, powdered, brown, and icing). For 60 years, the company has been producing sugar from beets, relying on a profile image of an American Indian in full-feathered headdress to sell the sugar goods. The products are available on grocery store shelves and in bulk for institutions, delivered by trucks with the Big Chief logo emblazoned on the sides. So, who does this Chief represent? Is he a legitimate tribal leader or a composite Indian designed to communicate naturalistic characteristics associated with Indians with the sugar? He shares the richness and abundance of the soil, and his presence implies and assures a natural ‘‘purity’’ and authority to the product. Green’s (1993) savage typology suggests this individual is a combination of the noble savage (natural) and the bloodthirsty savage (ferocious). He is proud, noble, and natural; yet, he is wearing a ceremonial headdress that communicates strength, stoicism, and authority. Crazy Horse Malt Liquor A 40-ounce beverage that is sold in approximately 40 states (Metz & Thee, 1994), Crazy Horse Malt Liquor is brewed by the Heilman Brewing

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Company of Brooklyn, New York. The company employs the image of Tasunke Witko (Crazy Horse) on the label the malt liquor. On the front of the bottle is the image of an American Indian man wearing a headdress that appears to be an eagle feather bonnet, and there is a symbol representing a medicine wheel of both sacred images in Lakota and other Native cultures. Image analysis shows the sign is that of an actual Indian chief and is therefore an icon. Signified, however, are beliefs about Indians as warriors, westward expansion, how mighty the consumer might be by drinking this brand, and wildness of the American Western frontier. This brand, perhaps more than any other, has come under public scrutiny because it is the image of a particular person. A revered ancestor of the Oglala Sioux tribe of South Dakota, Crazy Horse died in 1877 (Blalock, 1992). The labels feature the prominent image of Chief Crazy Horse, who has long been the subject of stories, literature, and movies. Larger than life, he has played a role in American mythology. Signifying Green’s (1993) bloodthirsty savage image, Crazy Horse Malt Liquor makes use of American myths through image and association. Ironically, Crazy Horse objected to alcohol and warned his nation about the destructive effects of liquor (Specktor, 1995). As a sign, Crazy Horse represents a real person and symbol of early American life and westward expansionism. He was, according to the vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, a ‘‘warrior, a spiritual leader, a traditional leader, a hero who has always been and is still revered by our people’’ (Hill, 1992; Metz & Thee, 1994, p. 50). This particular image brings together concise aspects of branding. Not only is the noble and bloodthirsty savage stereotypes brought together in a proud, but also ultimately defeated, Indian chief, but also this is an image of a real human being. The association of alcohol with that image, as well as targeting the Indian population, draws on assumptions of alcohol abuse.

DISCUSSION Although there are dozens of Native images on product labels, ranging from cigarette packages to sports utility vehicles, the examples discussed above illustrate the principles behind semiotics. The four presented here are significant examples of national brands employing stereotypical representations. When people become aware of these products, they realize how these images consistently employ Indian stereotypes either in product names or in their logos. Many of these signs and symbols have been with us so long that we no longer question them. Product images on

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packages, in advertisements, on television, in films, and as sports mascots are usually the only images seen by non-Indians of Native Americans. We accept the covers of romance novels routinely featuring Indian men sweeping beautiful non-Indian women off their feet as their bodices tear away. These stereotypical representations of Natives deny humanity and present them as existing only in the past as single, monolithic Indians (Merskin, 1998). American Indians are certainly not the only racial or ethnic group to be discriminated against, overtly or covertly. Aunt Jemima and Uncle Rastus certainly have their origins in dehumanizing, onedimensional images based on a tragic past. Yet, like Betty Crocker, these images have been updated. Aunt Jemima has lost weight and the bandana, and the Frito Bandito has disappeared (Burnham, 1992). Nevertheless, the Indian image persists in corporate marketing and product labeling. An Absolut Vodka ad shows an Eskimo pulling a sled of vodka and a Grey Owl Wild Rice package features an Indian with braids, wearing a single feather, surrounded by a circle that represents (according to Grey Owl’s distribution manager) the ‘‘oneness of nature’’ (Burnham, 1992). A partial list of others includes Apache helicopter, Jeep Cherokee, Apache rib doormats, Red Man Tobacco, Kleek-O the Eskimo (Cliquot Club ginger ale), Dodge Dakota, Pontiac, the Cleveland Indians, Mutual of Omaha, Calumet Baking Powder, Mohawk Carpet Mills, American Spirit cigarettes, Eskimo pies, Tomahawk mulcher, Winnebago Motor Homes, Indian Motorcycles, Tomahawk missiles, many high school sports teams, and the music behind the Hamm’s beer commercials that begins ‘‘From the land of sky blue waters.’’ Change is coming, albeit slowly. In 2000, British Petroleum Company changed the name of the largest-ever oil and gas find in the Gulf of Mexico from Crazy Horse to Thunder Horse after Tasunke Witko’s (Crazy Horse) family approached the company. The name seemed harmless to the public, but ‘‘it proved offensive to the descendants of the Sioux war hero, who prohibit use of the name except during prayer or during meetings of the inner circle of Crazy Horse’s family’’ (Crazy Horse). In 2001, Stroh Brewing Company (who purchased bankrupt Heilman Breweries) settled with the Rosebud Reservation and Witko’s descendents. Company President John Stroh III journeyed to the reservation, offered a formal apology to the Nation, and gifted the estate with 32 Pendleton blankets, 32 braids of sweet grass, and 32 twists of tobacco (one for each of the 32 states in which the malt liquor is distributed). Stroh’s also presented the Estate and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe with seven thoroughbred race horses (one for each of the seven bottling facilities) (Crazy Horse).

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Still, despite requests from Crazy Horse’s descendents (Walker, 2004), a Paris nude bar continues to be named Crazy Horse (Walker, 2004), as a does a Liz Claiborne clothing line sold at J.C. Penney (Rave, 2003), and Tootsie Rolls still carry the image of the Savage Chief (Smith, 2002, p. 27) on their wrappers. One reason change is so difficult is that American Indians are not a significant target audience to advertisers. Representing less than 1% of the population, and the most economically destitute of all ethnic minority populations, American Indians are not particularly useful to marketers. Nearly 30% live below the official poverty line, in contrast with 13% of the general U.S. population (Cortese, 1999, p. 117). Without the population numbers or legal resources, it is nearly impossible for the voices of Natives to be heard, unlike other groups who have made some representational inroads. According to Westerman (1989, p. 28), when minority groups speak, businesses are beginning to listen: ‘‘That’s why ‘Lil Black Sambo and the Frito Bandito are dead. They were killed by the very ethnic groups they portrayed.’’ Not only does stereotyping communicate inaccurate beliefs about Natives to Whites but also to Indians. Children, Native American included, are perhaps the most important recipients of this information. If, during the transition of adolescence, Native children internalize these representations that suggest Indians are lazy, obligated to ‘‘willingly’’ provide their native/natural bounty to Whites, are alcoholic by nature, and violent, this misinformation can have a lifelong impact on perceptions of self and others. As Lippmann (1922/1961, p. 89) wrote, ‘‘The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain the repertory of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them.’’ By playing a game of substitution, by inserting other ethnic groups or races into the same advertisement, the problem is clear. Stereotypical images do not reside only in the past, because the social control mechanisms that helped to create them remain with us today. Instead, they have gone mainstream, working smoothly through media and popular culture representations, relying on connotative understandings deeply rooted in the collective unconscious. Commodified racism, as articulated in stereotypical representations in advertising and branding functions to maintain the values, ideals, and controls of mainstream White society. By pulling back the curtain, the camouflage surrounding the everydayness of these portrayals become visible and can be changed.

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REFERENCES Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press. Berkhofer, R. (1979). The white man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the present. New York: Vintage Books. Biber, B. (1984). Early education and psychological development. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Blalock, C. (1992). Crazy Horse controversy riles congress: Controversies over Crazy Horse Malt Liquor and Black Death vodka. Beverage Industry, 83(9), p. 173. Burnham, P. (1992). Indians can’t shake label as guides to good buys. The Washington Times, May 27, p. E1. Cortese, A. J. (1999). Provocateur: Images of women and minorities in advertising. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Darian-Smith, K. (2002). Material culture and the ‘signs’ of captive white women. In: B. Creed & J. Hoorn (Eds), Body trade: Captivity, cannibalism, and colonialism in the Pacific (pp. 180–194). London: Routledge. Da´vila, A. (2001). Latinos Inc. The marketing and making of a people. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. DeFleur, M. L., & Dennis, E. E. (1998). Understanding mass communication. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Dijk, T. A. (1996). Discourse, racism, and ideology. La Laguna, Mexico: RCEI Ediciones. Domash, M. (2004). Selling civilization: Toward a cultural analysis of America’s economic empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Institute of British Geographers, 453–467. Dotz, W., & Morton, J. (1996). What a character! 20th century American advertising icons. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Doxater, M. G. (2004). Indigenous knowledge in the decolonial era. American Indian Quarterly, 28(3/4), 618–633. Dubinsky, K. (1999). The second greatest disappointment: Honeymooning and tourism at Niagara Falls. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ellwood, I. (2002). The essential brand book: Over 100 techniques to increase brand value. London: Kogan Page. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. [A. Sheridan, Trans.]. New York: Random House. Goings, K. W. (1994). Mammy and uncle mose: Black collectibles and American stereotyping. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Graham, R. (1993). Symbol or stereotype: One consumer’s tradition is another’s racial slur. The Boston Globe, January 6, p. 35. Green, M. K. (1993). Images of American Indians in advertising: Some moral issues. Journal of Business Ethics, 12, 323–330. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage. Hill, R. (1992). The non-vanishing American Indian: Are the modern images any closer to the truth? Quill (May), 35–37. Kates, S. M., & Shaw-Garlock, G. (1999). The ever-entangling web: A study of ideologies and discourses in advertising to women. Journal of Advertising, 28(2), 33–49.

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King, C. R. (1998). Spectacles, sports, and stereotypes: Dis/playing Chief Illiniwek. Colonial discourse, collective memories, and the exhibition of Native American cultures and histories in the contemporary United States. New York: Garland Press. King, C. R. (2001). Uneasy Indians: Creating and contesting Native American mascots at Marquette University. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: Essays on the history and significance of Native American mascots (pp. 281–303). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits: A selection. New York: Norton. Land O’Lakes. (2000). Available at http://www.landolakes.com. Retrieved on May 1, 2006. Larson, C. (1937). Patent-medicine advertising and the early American press. Journalism Quarterly, 14(4), 337–339. Leonard, D. (2005). Cashing in on the other: Race, commodity, and surveillance of contemporary athletes, January 26. Available at http://www.popmatters.com/sports/ features/050126-nikecommercials.shtml. Retrieved on September 10, 2005. Lippmann, W. (1922, 1961). Public opinion. New York: McMillan & Company. Mansvelt, J. (2005). Geographies of consumption. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Mastro, D. E., & Behm-Morawitz, E. (2005). Latino representations on primetime television. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(1), 110–127. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. McCracken, G. (1993). The value of the brand: An anthropological perspective. In: D. Aaker & A. L. Biel (Eds), Brand equity in advertising: Advertising’s role in building strong brands (pp. 125–142). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Merskin, D. (1998). Sending up signals: A survey of American Indian media use and representation in the mass media. The Howard Journal of Communications, 9, 337–345. Merskin, D. (2001). Winnebagos, Cherokees, apaches, and Dakotas: The persistence of stereotyping of American Indians in American advertising brands. The Howard Journal of Communication, 12, 159–169. Metz, S., & Thee, M. (1994). Brewers intoxicated with racist imagery. Business and Society Review, 89, 50–51. Michigan Sugar Company. Available at http://www.michigansugar.com/about/index.php. Retrieved on July 23, 2009. Mihesuah, D. A. (1996). American Indians: Stereotypes and realities. Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press. Morgan, H. (1986). Symbols of America. New York: Penguin Books. Oboler, S. (1998). Hispanics? That’s what they call us. In: R. Delgado & J. Stefancic (Eds), The Latino/a condition: A critical reader (pp. 3–5). New York: New York University Press. Ramı´ rez Berg, C. (1990). Latino images in film: Stereotypes, subversion, resistance. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Rave, J. (2003). Crazy Horse used to sell boobs and beer, March 4. Available at http:// indianz.com/News/show.asp?ID ¼ 2003/03/04/rave. Retrieved on June 2, 2006. Roediger, D. R. (2002). Colored white: Transcending the racial past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rosaldo, R. (1989). Imperialist nostalgia. Representations, 26, 107–122. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Schmitt, B., & Simonson, A. (1997). Marketing aesthetics: The strategic management of brands, identity, and image. New York: The Free Press.

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Shamdasani, S. (2003). Jung and the making of modern psychology: The dream of a science. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smith, S. D. (2002). The ticker. Money, 31(4), p. 27. Specktor, M. (1995). Crazy Horse exploited to peddle liquor. National Catholic Reporter, 31(10), p. 3. Staurowsky, E. J. (1998). The Cleveland Indians’ use of the Louis Francis Sockalexis story. Sociologicaly of Sport Journal, 15, 299–316. Sue Bee Honey. Sioux Honey Association. Available at http://www.suebee.com. Retrieved on July 23, 2009. Walker, C. (2004). Crazy Horse descendants ask Paris strip club to stop using name, October 14. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Available at Lexis/Nexis database. Retrieved on May 24, 2006. Westerman, M. (1989). Death of the Frito bandito: Marketing to ethnic groups. American Demographics, 11(March), 28–32. Williamson, J. (1978). Decoding advertisements: Ideology and meaning in advertising. New York: Marion Boyars.

YEAST:

CANNIBALIZING THE ORIENT IN AMERICAN CULTURE Sheng-mei Ma YEAST

Dear reader, lift your eyes momentarily from these words and look around you, to observe how this world is fraught with traces of the East, the yeast fermenting your very existence. Your clothes, your food, your Sony television, your Honda Accord, etc. Even the physical distance between you and the East is blurred as the shirt made in China rubs against and seeps into the atoms of your skin, as the Kimchi Ramen from Korea enters your entrails, as images displayed on your Sony television are reflected upside down at the back of your eyeballs, as the very thought of yEast now leavens in your mind – ‘‘leaven’’ as in ‘‘the Levant,’’ the rising of the sun, hence the East. The East is yeast for the United States’ psychodrama of hegemony since its rise at the end of World War II to the close of the twentieth century and beyond. The yEast serves, as does any fungus agent or any seasoning in food preparation, the paradoxical functions of transforming qualitatively the taste, smell, color, and size of food while remaining invisible, unnoticeable. As ‘‘trivial’’ as a pinch of salt or a tablespoon of soy sauce, the yEast is vital to American culture in concocting its identity in relation to the other that is the East, a chain reaction that brings to mind Paul’s warning against ‘‘the old leavenyof [sexual] depravity and wickedness’’ for ‘‘A little leaven leavens all the dough’’ (‘‘The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians’’ 5:6–8). Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 149–163 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033012

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Indeed, the ‘‘y’’ in yEast suggests the subordinate yet indispensible ‘‘yin,’’ or femininity, to the dominant West’s ‘‘yang.’’ In this orientalization, not only the Orient but Asian America suffers a ‘‘racial castration,’’ as David Eng argues in Racial Castration (2001, p. 1) when he points out that Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘‘Oriental’’ as ‘‘submission,’’ ‘‘weakness,’’ and ‘‘woman’’. By making possible the autoerotic, masturbatory fantasy of the masculinist West, the feminized yEast becomes the West’s wet dream, an assemblage of mental constructs, albeit illusory, essential to orgasm, or fulfillment of desires. Yet sexual and dietary desires satiate as much biological as psychological need. Eating, love-making, and other forms of interpenetration erase boundaries between subject and object, allowing a blur of self and other. As Sigmund Freud (1965) notes in ‘‘The Direction of the Psychical Personality,’’ psychic ‘‘identification has been not unsuitably compared with the oral, cannibalistic incorporation of the other person’’ (p. 56), in terms of both food intake and intercourse. This theory of ‘‘cannibalistic incorporation’’ lies at the heart of the Oedipus complex. In Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud (1950) boldly links the complex with ‘‘cannibal savages,’’ whose incestuous transgression remains implicit: One day the brothers who had been driven out came together, killed and devoured their fatheryCannibal savages as they were, it goes without saying that they devoured their victim as well as killing him. The violent primal father had doubtless been the feared and envied model of each one of the company of brothers: and in the act of devouring him they accomplished their identification with him, and each one of them acquired a portion of his strength. (pp. 141–42)

If one accepts, in symbolic terms, Freud’s daring reconstruction of prehistoric evolution, then the Oedipus complex entails not only the slaughtering of the victim but the partaking of and substituting for it. The feasting of flesh allows one to literally become the other. To read Freud against Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), one is immediately struck by the commensurability of Freudian cannibalism and postcolonialism, specifically the dynamics between the West and the Orient. ‘‘Orientalism is a style of thought,’’ proposes Said in his groundbreaking book, ‘‘based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’ ’’ (p. 2). Repeatedly, he claims that the Orient does not exist other than in Western discourse, nor does the Orient equate with the geographical non-West. Orientalist texts, to Said, are representations rather than ‘‘‘natural’ depictions of the Orient’’ (p. 21); they are concerned with the ‘‘exteriority’’ of the Orient. But when Said adds that Europe sets itself off ‘‘against the

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Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self’’ (p. 3), he points away from an oppositional, adversarial, or mutually exclusive relationship between the West and the Orient. Rather, he identifies a symbiosis, with a sense of self-reflexivity shot through the manifest and hegemonic as well as the subterranean and repressed half. On the one hand, the imperialist instinct propels the West to study and hence gain control of the Orient. On the other hand, I argue, the contrapuntal instinct leads the West to absorb, to identify with, and to be the Orient. Granted, the two complementary instincts lead, politically, to disastrous consequences: Colonizers’ ‘‘civilizing mission’’ projects their own paranoia and savagery onto the colonized; present-day multiculturalism and globalism are subtle ways to ‘‘manage’’ U.S. minorities and to forge or fabricate a New World Order. But this chapter intends to delineate as much the antipathy as the sympathy of West and East, the latter in the form of, principally, ‘‘Oriental’’ minority culture in the West. Therefore, ‘‘cannibalizing’’ in the title becomes both a verb and an adjective. As a verb, ‘‘cannibalizing’’ suggests that the ‘‘melting pot’’ of American culture devours Oriental images in what appears to be a process of transubstantiation. As an adjective, ‘‘cannibalizing’’ implies that the ‘‘Oriental’’ minority, despite or because of its ‘‘subaltern’’ status, is poised to cannibalize American culture from inside out and hence to qualitatively transform it. The double vision on ‘‘cannibalizing’’ remains unsettled, shifting infinitely. Indeed, the American Self and the Oriental Other are separated by a porous border; the host and the guest keep changing roles. Taking the cue from menu conventions and Wayne Wang’s 1985 film Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, I prepare this essay on cultural interpretation in culinary terms, so long as we remember that having been prepared in the same kitchen, the same ‘‘wok,’’ so to speak, using the same shakers for seasoning, their ingredients, aromas, and tastes are bound to intertwine. Both mainstream and minority culture flirt with and, ultimately, possess each other, a mating ritual that weds violence with longing. It is at once an exploitation and an absorption of the Other. Although I borrow from recent scholarship on cannibalism and othering1 to undo a vulgar interpretation of power imbalance inherent in Orientalism, cannibalism is not pure academic parlance, for even in our modern, ‘‘civilized’’ times, news or rumors of cannibalism continue to reach us from the 1846 Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada, the 1972 crash of an Uruguayan Air Force plane in the Andes, the 1970s dictatorship of Idi Amin in Uganda, and Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee in the early 1990s. The last one unwittingly promotes Anthony Hopkins’ Silence of the Lambs (1991), based on Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel. But, of course, the literal or

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symbolic eating of fellow human beings is found in any civilization at any given time. Myth, folktale, and children’s story are replete with flesh-eating, blood-sucking ghouls: Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cyclops, Count Dracula, just to name a few from the EuroAmerican tradition. In Greek mythology, cannibalism of the Olympians, especially of an Oedipal strain, taints the very origin of civilization. Cronus devours all his offspring, until Zeus escapes to usurp the power of the father. Euripides’ The Bacchae dramatizes the revenge of a scorned Dionysus, who tricks Agave, in a frenzied state, to dismember her own son Pentheus. Centuries later, Shakespeare articulates anti-Semitism in the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish usurer who demands a pound of flesh close to the heart if the debt is unpaid. Characterizing Jews with the twin sins of usury and cannibalism, Shakespeare masks Christian resentment against Jews, whom George Steiner calls the ‘‘bad conscience’’ of the Western world.2 In addition to the politically incorrect Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift’s ‘‘The Modest Proposal’’ (1728) proposes, tongue-in-cheek, solving the Irish problem by selling Irish one-year olds as meat to the English landlords, ‘‘who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.’’ In Joseph Conrad’s ‘‘Heart of Darkness’’ (1903) depicting how the Dark Continent infects the sanity of a white man Kurtz, the protagonist Marlow is greeted by a grotesque sight upon entry into Kurtz’s territory: ‘‘and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids – a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber’’ (p. 85). Although only the heads are visible, and there is no direct evidence of consuming the body, Reay Tannahill’s Flesh and Blood: A History of the Cannibal Complex (1975), a light, humorous exegesis of cannibalism in human history, yokes together ‘‘rituals of cannibalism, blood-drinking, and headhunting’’ (p. 2). Tannahill links headhunting with cannibalism by suggesting that ‘‘headhunting was almost invariably accompanied by a cannibalism’’ (p. 169), with no more evidence than the presumed level of barbarity required by both endeavors. Proof aside, Conrad’s description of Kurtz conflates the colonialist with the colonized. Kurtz appropriates African resources and lays waste the jungle, and is in turn wasting away. A capitalist perversion of the mythic uroboros chewing its own tail in a circle, the dying Kurtz ‘‘open[ed] his mouth wide – it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him’’ (p. 87).

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Nourished by ‘‘recent studies of imperialism and ‘colonial discourse’’’ on cannibalism (p. 5), Maggie Kilgour explores in From Communion to Cannibalism; An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation (1990) canonical writers and the Christian symbol of Communion. Consistent with Freud’s theory on psychic identification, Kilgour contends that the ambivalence embodied in the Eucharist when ‘‘both God and man play ‘host’’’ (p. 15) actually denotes human beings’ attempt to eliminate any remaining external remnant, to turnythe outside inside, [and it] suggests that at the basis of the dualism is a nostalgia for total unity and onenessy. I [Kilgour] hope to explore the ways in which antitheses support totalizing systems by showing how the inside/outside division presupposes a lost state of total inwardnessya nostalgia for a state of total incorporation that underlies many of the major trends of Western thought: idealism, scientific rationalism, traditional psychoanalysis, as well as imperialism, and theories in general which try to construct a transcendental system or imagine a single body that could contain all meaning. (p. 5)

Kilgour goes on to point out that ‘‘like the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnation, the Eucharist is a paradoxical relation involving the simultaneous identification and differentiation of opposites. It is a banquet at which host and guest can come together without one subsuming the other, as both eat and are eaten’’ (p. 79). Despite the metaphysical tenor of her argument, Kilgour also sounds a cautionary note in terms of ‘‘physical’’ reality, that is, power differentials. Although eating suggests ‘‘total identity between eater and eaten,’’ it also entails, Kilgour writes, ‘‘total control – the literal consumption – of the latter by the former’’ (p. 7). This warning sequels to ethnic scholarship on consumption, which often analyzes the discrepancies between the multicultural fallacy of the white eater to incorporate the other and the pang of the Asian-American morsel. The Chinese American playwright Frank Chin has long championed the provocative view of ‘‘food pornography,’’ minority survival – even prosperity – by means of capitalizing on majority expectations (Chin, Chan, Inada, & Wong, 1974/1991). Sau-ling Cynthia Wong in Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to Extravagance (1993) defines ‘‘food pornography’’ culturally as ‘‘reifying perceived cultural differences and exaggerating one’s otherness in order to gain a foothold in a white-dominated social system.’’ Wong likens it to prostitution, but with a key change: ‘‘superficially, food pornography appears to be a promotion, rather than a vitiation or devaluation, of one’s ethnic identity’’ (p. 55). Examples of ‘‘food pornography’’ are, alas, too numerous to catalogue, from the host of the TV show Yan Can Cook to some other Oriental celebrities. Martin Yan, for instance, is the host who sports the persona of a perennial alien, or a house guest in white hegemony, entertaining

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with his antics and embarrassing pidgin, serving up for the duration of the show his clownish self and ‘‘Orientalness.’’ These performers’ personal success perpetuates stereotypes more effectively than any yellowface Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu could, as a result of their presumed authenticity. Wong turns food into her overarching thesis in Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to Extravagance. Wong’s subtitle stems from Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (1976), where immigrant parents are ‘‘big eaters’’ out of necessity and American-born children extravagant ‘‘treat lovers.’’ Casting a wide net over Asian-American literature, Wong conducts an exhaustive study on symbols of food: Joy Kogawa’s (1982) ‘‘stone bread’’ suppressing the Japanese Canadians’ World War II sufferings, Lonny Kaneko’s (1991) ‘‘The Shoyu Kid’’ (1976) where a boy prostitutes himself for sweets at an internment camp, the donut making woman in Toshio Mori’s prelapsarian or pre-internment Yokohama, California (1949/1985), the pidgeon bone-savoring parents in Fae Myenne Ng’s (1993) ‘‘A Red Sweater’’ (1986), and many more. Possibly due to her avowed objective to shun ‘‘de-Americaniz[ing]’’ Asian-American literature and to stress its ‘‘grounding in American historical experiences’’ (p. 9), Wong does not investigate Asian influences on the recurring theme in Asian-American literature of what she calls ‘‘quasi-cannibalism.’’ Granted that anthropophagy would remain an inherently repulsive topic for any reader, even after a theoretical framework citing Freud and Said, I propose a reading of cannibalism in literary texts to highlight its omnipresence, followed by a local sampler, a ‘‘personal’’ or ‘‘forensic’’ evidence for the purely rhetorical cannibalism. First of all, consider an early American attempt to absorb the alien Orient. Written by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese, Five Chinese Brothers is a 1938 children’s book that remains widely available today.3 This story deals with five Chinese brothers who look and apparently sound alike, a supposedly dated stereotype mindlessly perpetuated, still, by Britain’s Prince Philip who in his 1986 visit to China warned a British student there that ‘‘you will get slitty eyes’’ should he or she stay much longer,4 by New York’s Senator Alphonse D’Amato who, in a radio talk show in 1995, mocked in ‘‘Oriental accent’’ Lance Ito, the presiding judge of the O. J. Simpson trial,5 by Shaquille O’Neal who, in the summer of 2002, asked reporters to relay to Yao Ming, the NBA rookie from Shanghai, the message of ‘‘Ching-chongyang-wah-ah-soh,’’6 and by perhaps many more less indiscreet public figures. True to form, the five brothers (indeed, all the Chinese in that story) so resemble one another, with their slant and beady eyes, idiotic smiles, long queues, and traditional dress, that they are identical quintuplets.

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All magically endowed, the eldest can swallow the ocean in one gulp; the second has an iron neck; the third can stretch his legs indefinitely; the fourth cannot be burned; and the fifth can hold his breath forever. Trouble begins when the eldest brother accidentally spews out the ocean water and drowns a boy. The judge sentences him to death and clearly represents townspeople’s wishes, as placid spectators gather to view each execution attempt. As the eldest is about to be executed, he asks for a night’s reprieve to bid his mother farewell. On the next day, the second brother returns and beheading is out of the question. The same substitution occurs unnoticed the third day, and the third brother simply refuses to be drowned. The fourth brother calls for more firewood as he burns at the stake. The fifth brother yawns and stretches after being smothered in an oven full of whipping cream the whole night. Seemingly trumpeting such Oriental virtues as filial piety and sacrifice, the book has man-eating as its subtext. The eldest brother devours the sea and, inadvertently, a boy. The four executions increasingly approximate cannibalism, moving from beheading to drowning, to roasting, and finally to baking in an oven. Although the last brother is not said to be fireresistant, one infers fire from the smoke rising out of the oven (a kiln-like earthen dome) both before and after his confinement. In addition, the huge spatula used in shoveling the brother into the oven resembles those at bakeries. An oven of whipped cream further betrays the intention of treating the brother as the raw material – cake mix – for a cake. The Western and not the Chinese frame of reference is brought to the fore since whipped cream in the late Qing and early Republic setting of the story could not possibly be a common Chinese delicacy; whipped cream indicates that the purportedly ‘‘Chinese’’ story is a projection of the West’s own lifestyle and state of mind. By turning executions into public spectacles, Bishop and Wiese underline how ‘‘primitive’’ the Chinese are. And by adding the touch of whipped cream, they conjoin extravagance or luxury with cruelty. The superhuman endowment of the Chinese brothers suggests Bishop and Wiese’s attempt to come to grips with Chineseness, a magical site that is also forbidding. Although Bishop and Wiese’s book illustrates the double entendre of ‘‘cannibalizing’’ in my title, Asian Americans exhibit similar ambiguity, alternately critiquing and reinscribing Orientalism, oftentimes in the same breath, evidenced in a number of literary texts obsessed with ethnic (as) food, for instance, Cathy Song. When McGraw-Hill’s American Tradition in Literature (1999) needs to include Asian-American writers since the 1960s, the editors choose Amy Tan (1995) and Cathy Song, a Korean-American poet from Hawaii.7 Let us consider Cathy Song as a representative AsianAmerican poet in relation to the theme of cannibalism. One of the poems in

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her debut Picture Bride (1983) combines ethnic and anthropophagic motifs. Song opens ‘‘Chinatown’’ with the exact stereotype that Bishop and Wiese have proffered: ‘‘Chinatowns: they all look alike.’’ Although the opening points to the place rather than the people, what follows is a collage of racist cliches. Aesthetically, this poem is stunningly imagistic, each barebone stanza superimposing descriptive with prescriptive images: descriptive of the socioeconomic deprivation and the human conflicts in Chinatown; prescriptive of age-long Orientalist stereotypes: ‘‘Dead / center: fish eyes,’’ ‘‘A network of yellow tumors,’’ ‘‘bamboo chopstick tenements,’’ ‘‘hoarding sunlight / from the neighbors / as if it were rice.’’ Song’s strategy is to seize with her poet’s eyes the essence of her subject – the stifling Chinatown street scene – and fold it into Western preconceptions, be it fish eye, yellow peril, chopsticks, or rice consumption. Granted that the portrayal of old Chinatown’s decay across the United States is largely accurate, the poet’s tone remains chillingly detached, with no apparent compassion for and identification with the urban underclass. Although Song’s poem amounts to a gagging, a vomiting, to expel the part of her Asian-American self – ‘‘fish eye’’ and ‘‘yellow tumors’’ – that is undesirable, that intense selfloathing gives away how intimately she identifies with ‘‘Chinatown.’’ The nauseating street scenes of ‘‘oily joint’’ with ‘‘roach eggs’’ intensify as Chinese residents merge into the general ruin. The cook Father of part 3 of the poem is in danger of chopping off his own fingers, thus graduating from preparing food to being food himself. The pregnant Mother of part 4 is swollen in the manner of ‘‘Sour plums / fermenting in dark cellars.’’ Food imageries abound, escalating from the Father feeding guests to the Mother feeding the family and the fetus – both nearly with their own bodies, culminating in part 5 and the finale when their children are eaten: The children are the dumplings set afloat. y bobbing up to surface in the steamy cauldron y Wrap the children in wonton skins

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Reserved for special occasions, the making of dumplings and wontons are labor-intensive, requiring concerted efforts of a group of people. When the family are preparing food for, say, the Chinese New Year, small coins, the size of U.S. pennies would be secretly wrapped into a couple of dumplings. Whoever eat those dumplings with coins are supposed to have a lucky year. Dumplings, in other words, carry memories of childhood fun and family togetherness; instead, they turn into symbols of torment in Song’s poem. Straitjacketed by tradition, Asian America, nevertheless, lingers on in memories of dumpling- and wonton-eating. Even their escape in the concluding stanza as ‘‘incense to a strong wind’’ returns them to the ritual of ancestral worship.

LOCAL SAMPLER The East in the Midwest: Oriental Food Services in the Belly of America The Lord ordained that a great fish should swallow Jonah, and he remained in its belly for three days and three nights. (Jonah 1:17) On this journey in which old Monkey is accompanying the T’ang monk to go seek scriptures, we passed through Canton and I picked up a portable frying pan, excellent for cooking chop suey. If I take time to enjoy your liver, chittlings, stomach, and lungs, I think I can last easily till spring! ‘‘O Elder Brother,’’ said the third demon, ‘‘it’s all right to let him eat the chop suey, but I wonder where he is going to set up the frying pan.’’ ‘‘On the fork of his chest bone, of course!’’ replied Pilgrim. ‘‘That’s bad!’’ cried the third demon. ‘‘If he sets up the pan there and starts a fire, you’ll sneeze if the smoke rises to your nostrils, won’t you?’’ ‘‘Don’t worry,’’ said Pilgrim, chuckling. ‘‘Let old Monkey punch a hole through his head with my golden-hooped rod. That will serve both as a skylight and a chimney.’’ (Journey to the West, Chapters 75)

This local sampler takes its cue from both the biblical Jonah and the Chinese Monkey from Journey to the West. Swallowed by the whale, Jonah mends his ways and carries out the Lord’s wishes. Monkey, by contrast, plays with the demon, ready to cannibalize from inside out the one who cannibalized him. Compared to Jonah’s conversion, Monkey’s subversiveness from within serves as a role model for ‘‘Orientals’’ trapped in the Oriental food services in the Midwest, a region that the comedienne Margaret Cho (2001) calls ‘‘Midwaste’’ (p. 98), due in part to the relative invisibility of Asian Americans. On the basis of such a premise, I conduct a semiotic mini-reading of the Oriental restaurants and grocery stores along

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Grand River Avenue, the main drag of the adjacent cities of Lansing, East Lansing, and Okemos in the state of Michigan, the digestive tract processing Oriental food and culinary symbols in the body of the West. To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet: ‘‘How much do Americans love going Oriental? Let me count the restaurants.’’ Within roughly half a mile along this avenue, there are five Oriental grocery stores and close to fifty Asian restaurants of various sizes. All of them feature prominently ‘‘Orientalness,’’ not only with the products they carry but with the way they present themselves. The billboard of Kim’s Oriental Market on the corner of Trowbridge and Harrison streets serves to illustrate this observation. The billboard is divided into two halves, with the upper two-thirds devoted to a taco restaurant right next door to Kim’s. Both ethnic, Kim’s, however, defines itself as much with fresh vegetables and Kimchee as with the calligraphic style in which the sign is painted. The calligraphy is what I call, for lack of a better term, the faux Chinese script – short, choppy, curving strokes pointed at one end and wide, broken-off at the other. (Microsoft Word offers in its menu this faux Chinese font called ‘‘Wonton ICG.’’) This script is a corruption of Chinese calligraphy normally with brush strokes round at one end and pointed at the other. In Chinese calligraphy, each brush stroke usually begins by pausing and creating a node of dark ink and concentrated force; then it sweeps through whichever direction for the length of that stroke and concludes by gently lifting the brush at the end to leave behind a point that juts into the blankness of the rice paper. This pattern of a starting node and an ending sharp point is reconfigured for almost every conceivable stroke in Chinese calligraphy.8 Although the rice paper on which calligraphy is performed would disintegrate, masters’ calligraphy throughout the dynasties has been reasonably well preserved through the techniques of stone engravings, rubbings, and the consequent standardized calligraphy primers. The faux Chinese script, however, parodies this pattern that would take years of practice to acquire, giving us instead the awkward, childishly comical strokes that formulate English alphabets which, in turn, insinuate an Orientalness. It is distressing to note that this script is used in every facet of Oriental food services – billboard, sign, menu, merchandise packaging, chopsticks wrap, take-out box, and the like. Kim’s billboard reflects, in fact, the legacy of centuries of Western Orientalism. Many illustrated magazines in Europe from the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century ran stories about Europe’s expansion in Asia. The London Illustrated News, for instance, intensified its coverage of China during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. Without fail, Beijing street scenes,

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shopfronts, flags, and others in this weekly magazine were dotted with faux Chinese scribblings. This Continental style of representation was exported to the United States when American cartoonists – many of them European expatriates – turned to similar subjects. With the abundance of historical records, one example will have to suffice. Collected in The Coming Man: 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese (1995), coedited by Philip Choy, Dong, & Hom (1995) is an undated illustration in Puck by C. J. Taylor, one possibly from around the turn of the century. Taylor’s caricature arrays American politicians in Qing dynasty robes and long queues, some kowtowing and others burning incense to a deity-like Chinese official who displays a scroll with the faux Chinese writing of ‘‘Exclusion of Foreign trade.’’ Chinese protectionism is blamed for, as the caption goes, ‘‘The Adoration of the 6,000-Year-Old Chinese Idea, and If Its Disciples Keep It up Long Enough. They Will Surely Bring Us All to Eating Rats and Rice.’’ Taylor at the behest of Puck espouses an aggressive campaign to open up Chinese markets, whereas politicians, including a McKinley (President of the United States, 1897–1901), are derided as ‘‘disciples’’ of Chinese policy. It is intriguing that a business proposition is presented by the caption as a matter of survival. Lest the U.S. force open China’s door, Americans would be reduced, the cartoon warns, ‘‘to Eating Rats and Rice,’’ an alliterated pair that, auditorily, associates the Chinese staple with rodents. The faux Chinese script finds itself an integral part of racist portrayals. But such faux Chinese calligraphy is resorted to by contemporary Asian-American writers as well. Riding on her success in young adult fictions with the series on Yang siblings, the Seattle-based Lensey Namioka collaborates with the illustrator Aki Sogabe to produce The Hungriest Boy in the World (2001), a title painted in the style that looks like Kim’s Oriental Market or C. J. Taylor’s caricature. Yet the real look-alike is the Orientalist discourse, whose willful misrepresentation of the other stems from colonizers’ misuse of and anxiety over their power. Another marketing strategy involves the logo of a local restaurant, The House of Ing, whose billboards and flyers turn ‘‘Incredible!’’ into ‘‘Ing-credible!’’ with the ‘‘Ing’’ in faux Chinese strokes driven through by a pair of chopsticks. The restaurateur, presumably Mr. Ing, appears in TV commercials and boasts of his business’s ‘‘locaSEN! LocaSEN! LocaSEN!’’ in Cantonese accent and with the stress falling on the last syllable. Whether or not Mr. Ing deliberately mispronounces the real estate catchphrase to play the racial clown, like Martin Yan, the establishment sells ethnic food by way of the stereotypes of funny accent and poor spelling, a reputed racial deficiency silhouetting the superiority of English-speaking customers.

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Both the host (‘‘unassimilable aliens’’) and the guest (‘‘natives’’) are implicated in what Umberto Eco (1985) calls ‘‘programmed stimuli’’: ‘‘Expressions which the addressee does not perceive as semiotic constructs and reacts to with a merely physical response – though the sender uses them as semiotic devices whose effect he foresees, conventionally associating it to the stimulus – are called programmed stimuli’’ (p. 180). Perhaps unbeknownst to both restaurateurs and customers, such ‘‘semiotic devices’’ are practiced, received, circulated, and revalidated. The totality of explicit and subliminal messages emitted by The House of Ing is such that a ‘‘Go Chinese!’’ night-out would satisfy the palate as much as massage the ego. Western consumption of Chinese food in the Midwest follows this pattern of exotic cliche´s – alien and yet familiar, seemingly new, and yet entirely predictable. Such contradictory elements characterize Oriental food services. It takes no particular acuity for an average middle-class American to visualize a Chinese restaurant, with its interior decoration dominated by motifs such as dragons, phoenixes, the Great Wall, and bowing figures in traditional costumes; with its light, popular music from Hong Kong and Taiwan or classical Chinese music; with its culinary taste leaning toward sweet and sour, or awefully salty and greasy. Freud’s (1953) dualistic interpretation of the uncanny – both familiar and strange – marks Oriental food services so precisely that the symbiotic pair arises even before one reaches an Oriental restaurant. A visit to the Chinese restaurant, for example, begins with the usual car ride through familiar cityscape to an establishment with exotic store front, if not tilted pagoda-style roof, then surely Chinese ideograms on the signs. The exact meaning of those Chinese words on the sign or on the menu is far less important than the aura of exoticism they lend to the outing to Orientalness. By the same token, the cultural significance of interior designs such as classical paintings, lanterns, and dragons may elude customers. Just like Roland Barthes’ Japan in Empire of Signs (1970), incomprehensibility of a foreign culture engenders total emancipation, so long as the ignorant – in this case, Barthes – is secure in his or her sense of being. The semiotic disorientation Barthes experiences in Japan does not threaten his physical well-being. On the contrary, it contributes to his intellectual development. Customers of Chinese food, likewise, are to be entertained and served. Critiquing the power relationships between researchers and their subject in Robert Park’s Chicago School Sociology, Henry Yu has argued in Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (2001, p. 85) that ‘‘exotic knowledge was exciting, something to be collected and objectified. What made such knowledge a fetish for elite white men and

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women was that it represented adventure of the exotic. The Orient was the opposite of everything that was uninteresting in their own lives.’’ To borrow Yu’s diagnosis, Oriental food services become a fetish for the American public due to its antithetical nature. Instead of knife and fork, chopsticks are used. Instead of cutting in one’s plate, all cutting is done in the kitchen, most likely with a meat cleaver usually associated with butchers in the West. The West takes the yEast into itself. The strangeness is absorbed and domesticated within the familiar; the foreign is consumed, literally gorged, by the self. Chinese restaurants along Grand River Avenue resembles Chinatowns scattered throughout U.S. metropoles – alien elements exhibited like body piercing for touristic voyeurism and for psychic needs. For human activity is a single-minded, sometimes frenzied, imposition of meaning onto life’s randomness, the Oriental food experience is no exception, with the cachet of the exotic. Out of the daily grind in modern life, Oriental food presents a temporary escape from the Western self, an excursion into the opposite of self, a microcosm complete with woks, chopsticks, and perhaps pidgin English-ee. Every meal would then open with the paper table spread of the Chinese zodiac and ends with fortune cookies. The Chinese zodiac divides time into cycles of twelve years, each arbitrarily assigned a specific animal, from mouse to pig. Depending on the year one is born in and the animal one is associated with, temperament and current fortune are foretold. Hence it is an ancient way of patterning unpredictability. While awaiting the meal to arrive, one is free to contemplate one’s fortune based on the Chinese periodization, as an expression of ancient mystery or of primitive idiocy. I submit that customer reception often dangles between the two extremes. The meal concludes, of course, with the bill accompanied and ‘‘sugarcoated’’ by fortune cookies which recycle the scheme of exotic cliches. Ironically, in the position of fortune cookie for this essay, ‘‘Local Sampler’’ only whets the appetite of whoever is interested in exploring the cultural phenomenon of yEast.

NOTES 1. So popular is the theme of cannibalism that even The Chronicle of Higher Education features a report on it, ‘‘Love Me, Miss Me, Eat Me,’’ written by D. W. Miller and published on August 10, 2001. Miller interviews Professor Beth A. Conklin, whose Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001) discusses the Wari’ tribe’s practice of funerary cannibalism as an expression of grief and mourning. 2. George Steiner, ‘‘A Season in Hell,’’ (1971).

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3. Claire Huchet Bishop (1938). The title of Five Chinese Brothers on the cover is written in the faux Chinese script, which I discuss later on. 4. John Parker (1990, p. 229). 5. Brian Locke (1998, p. 243). 6. Reported by Josh Tyrangiel (2003). 7. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988, 2nd ed.) also includes Cathy Song as a representative Asian-American poet. The other two poets tangentially related to Asian America are Michael Ondaatje from Sri Lanka residing in Canada and the mixed race Ai. 8. Albertine Gaur believes that there are thirty-seven different strokes in Chinese writing. Albertine Gaur (1994, p. 108).

REFERENCES Barthes, R. (1970/1982). Empire of signs. [(R. Howard, Trans.)]. New York: Hill and Wang. Bishop, C. H. (1938). Five Chinese brothers. Illustrated by Kurt Wiese. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Chin, F., Chan, J. P., Inada, L. F., & Wong, S. (Eds). (1974/1991). Aiiieeeee!: An anthology of Asian American writers. New York: Mentor. Cho, M. (2001). I’m the one that I want. New York: Ballantine. Choy, P., Dong, L., & Hom, M. (Eds). (1995). The coming man: 19th century American perceptions of the Chinese. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Conklin, B. A. (2001). Consuming grief: Compassionate cannibalism in an Amazonian society. Austin: University of Texas Press. Conrad, J. (1903). Heart of darkness. Tales of land and sea (pp. 33–104). New York: Hanover House. Eco, U. (1985). Producing signs. In: M. Blonsky (Ed.), On signs (pp. 176–183). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Eng, D. (2001). Racial castration: Managing masculinity in Asian America. Durham: Duke University Press. Freud, S. (1950). Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics. [(J. Strachey, Trans.)]. New York: Norton. Freud, S. (1953). The ‘‘Uncanny.’’ Collected papers, volume IV: Papers on metapsychology, papers on applied psycho-analysis (pp. 368–407). London: Hogarth. Freud, S. (1965). The direction of the psychical personality. In: J. Strachey (Ed.), New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. New York: Norton. Gaur, A. (1994). A history of calligraphy. New York: Cross River Press. Kaneko, L. (1991). The Shoyu kid. In: F. Chin, J. P. Chan, L. F. Inada & S. Wong (Eds), The big aiiieeeee: An anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American literature (pp. 304–314). New York: Meridian. Kilgour, M. (1990). From communion to cannibalism; an anatomy of metaphors of incorporation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kingston, M. H. (1976). The woman warrior: Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts. New York: Knopf. Kogawa, J. (1982). Obasan. Boston: David R. Godine.

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Locke, B. (1998). Here comes the judge: The dancing itos and the televisual construction of the enemy Asian male. In: S. Torres (Ed.), Living color: Race and television in the U.S (pp. 239–253). Durham: Duke University Press. Miller, D. W. (2001). Love me, miss me, eat me. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 48(August 10), A15–A16. Mori, T. (1949/1985). Yokohama, California. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Ng, F. M. (1986). A red sweater. The American Voice, 4, 47–58. Ng, F. M. (1993). Bone. New York: Hyperion. Parker, J. (1990). Prince Philip: A critical biography. London: Sidgwick and Jackson. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. Song, C. (1983). Chinatown. Picture bride (pp. 61–64). New Haven: Yale University Press. Steiner, G. (1971). The bluebeard’s castle. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tan, A. (1995). The hundred secret senses. New York: Putnam. Tannahill, R. (1975). Flesh and blood: A history of the cannibal complex. New York: Stein and Day. Tyrangiel, J. (2003). The center of attention. Time (February 10), 68–71. Wang, W., dir. (1985). Dim sum: A little bit of heart. CIM Productions, Orion Classics. Wong, S. C. (1993). Reading Asian American literature: From necessity to extravagance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yu, H. (2001). Thinking orientals: Migration, contact, and exoticism in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press.

IT’S GOTTA BE THE BODY: RACE, COMMODITY, AND SURVEILLANCE OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK ATHLETES$ David J. Leonard On November 15, 2005, the National Football League and its media partners once again found itself amid controversy. On the heels of Janet Jackson’s ‘‘wardrobe malfunction,’’ the appearance of a Monday Night Football promotional skit involving the Philadelphia Eagle’s Terrell Owens and Desperate Housewives’ Nicolette Sheridan prompted much public debate and rancor. The skit, which contained an eventually naked Sheridan seducing Owens as he prepared for the game against the Dallas Cowboys, resulted in a whirlwind of controversy, 50,000 complaints to the FCC and an avalanche of media posturing. With few exceptions, the public discourse systematically erased race, reducing this public spectacle to one of moral values, corrupted children and public sexuality. The tired rhetoric about exposing our youth to overt sexuality played out with unrelenting $

Parts of this essay originally appeared in article written by the author entitled, ‘‘Cashing in on the Other: Race, Commodity and Surveillance of Contemporary Athletes’’ (January 26, 2005, popmatters.com). It is available at http://www.popmatters.com/sports/features/050126nikecommercials.shtml; thanks to Tobias Peterson and Sarah Zupko.

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redundancy – the discourse of ‘‘wardrobe malfunctions’’ reared its head once again. Less than a week later, the sports world would turn to ‘‘bigger problems,’’ yet of the same source: the unmanageable and uncontrollable ‘‘young, black, rich and famous’’ athlete (Boyd, 2003) following a brawl between members of the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons fans. I start this chapter here, not so much as a entry way into a discussion of either the MNF skit, or even widespread demonization of blackness within the public sphere, but rather to elucidate the powerful ways in which blackness, particularly a black male (athletic) sexuality represents both a sign and symbol of moral indecency/decay and a site of contestation and profiteering, condemnation, and pleasure-seeking (Andrews, 1996; Andrews, 2001; Cole, 2001). In 1984, David Stern began his tenure as the NBA’s commissioner. Even more so than the MLB or the NFL, the NBA was plagued by criticisms that the league was too black, which wasn’t simply a criticism regarding the demographics of the league, but rather the aesthetics, styles, and transparent blackness in its bodies. Not surprisingly, accusations of selfishness, criminality, drugs, disconnect between fan and player, and overall contempt for the NBA’s product defined his early tenure (Hughes, 2004; Boyd, 2003; Tucker, 2003; Denzin, 2001; Cole & Andrews, 1996). Beyond instituting policy changes, which continue today, that seek to police, discipline, and control hyper-black bodies, the NBA and its marketing partners have long deemphasized the blackness of the NBA baller. David Stern, in answering questions about the persistence of a race problem in the NBA, encapsulates the hegemony of colorblind ideologies within the sports: ‘‘By and larger the majority of the sport public is colorblind. I do not believe they care if Julius Erving or Carl Lewis or Mark Breland is black. They’re great champions, and the people will respond to them, regardless of race’’ (Wynter, 2002, p. 99). Taken a step further, David Falk concludes that black superstars occupy new bodies upon securing athletic stardom, as they become raceless bodies within the popular imagination. ‘‘Celebrities aren’t black. People don’t look at Michael as being black. They accept that he’s different because he is a celebrity’’ (Gates, 1998, p. 54). The retirement of Michael Jordan has not only inspired speculation of who will fill his Air Jordan on the court, or even in the marketing of the league, but better said, who will offer evidence for colorblindness and racial transcendence. More importantly, his retirement has left a vacuum within the NBA and broader media culture as the availability of a desired and commodifiable black body, whose blackness is appealing – as edge or spice rather than political or sexual – yet controllable. As of yet, the NBA and its marketing partners have failed in securing such desirable body, evident by its fledging rates and the types of

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commercials available today. Whether the injuries faced by Grant Hill or the on-the-court struggles of Jerry Stackhouse and Harold Miner, or the criminal charges against Kobe Bryant, who Todd Boyd described as the NBA’s ‘‘de facto White man’’ (Boyd, 2003, p. 161), the NBA and the sports world as a whole has found it difficult to find the ultimate ‘‘free floating signifier’’ whose blackness is both commodifiable and invisible. Gary Whannel (1998, p. 23) argues that sports have increasingly become a site of individualized consumption, a spectacle of sorts. ‘‘Sports is presented largely in terms of stars and narratives: the media narratives the events of sports, transforming them into stories with stars and characters; heroes and villains’’. David L. Andrews and Steven J. Jackson concur, noting that in today’s multilayered ‘‘promotional culture’’ (Wernick, 1991) ‘‘the sports celebrity is effectively a multi-textual and multi-platform promotional entity’’ (2001, p. 7). In true neo-liberal fashion, the ascent to sport celebrityhood is habitually reduced to individual qualities such as innate talent, dedication, and good fortune, thus positioning the sport star as a deserving benefactor of his/her devotion to success within the popular imaginary (Andrews & Jackson, 2001, p. 8). While Whannel and Andrews are correct in pointing out the powerful ways in which athletic bodies are packaged and sold, the significance of those bodies conceived and constructed as black are of utmost importance to both dominant ideology and transnational corporations. William Rhoden, in Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete, links black athletic prominence to discourse of colorblind and post-civil rights progress, arguing that sports is central to hegemonic myths and narratives of race in twenty-first century America. ‘‘The celebrity of the African American athlete is still used to make the case that discrimination has disappeared and that integration in the West has created equal opportunity. For many, African American athletes embody the freedom and expanded opportunities that are there for everybody, provided they work hard’’ (2006, xi). Not only commodified as part of nationalized discourses of meritocracy, colorblindness, the American dream, and continued racial progress as the pillars of neoliberalism and colorblindness, black athletes have increasingly become objects of consumption and production within the marketplace. Black athletes are running faster and jumping higher than ever before. They earn more money in one season than their predecessors earned during their entire career. Such contemporary African American athletes like Lebron James, Michael Vick, and Tiger Woods are worshiped almost as gods. At a time when the number of black males attending college is increasing at a slower rate than the number being incarcerated, young black men with stellar athletic ability are still hotly pursued, coddled, and

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showered with gifts and promises to attend major colleges and universities. Black faces and black bodies are used to sell everything from clothing to deodorant and soft drinks. Their gestures, colorful language, and overall style are used by Madison Avenue to project the feel and fashion of inner-city America to an eager global marketplace – they’re the stealth ambassadors of hip-hop culture and capitalism, bridges between the ‘street’ and the mainstream. (2006, p. 1)

Duke Historian John Hope Franklin describes contemporary sporting culture in similar ways, arguing that the visibility, fame, and financial opportunities afforded to black athletes result in an illusion of progress, a comforting mirage to the majority of Americans, or more importantly a cultural distortion that erases the persistent inequalities facing African Americans throughout the United States. ‘‘There was always time when society could absorb a select number, a small number, which would be the exception that proved the rule,’’ notes Franklin. ‘‘You still have more black men in jail than you’ve got in college. Where are they in terms of income, where are they in terms of privilege, where are they in terms of just being able to ‘make it’ in our society’’ (as quoted in Rhoden, 2006, p. 269). This chapter takes up these questions of commodification, through both political discourse and the marketplace, as it relates to contemporary sports culture and its positioning and representation of black athletes, focusing on a series of commercials that illustrate both the power of black athletic bodies as corporate pitchmen and as markers of ideological project, yet whose plays within the dominant marketplace is overdetermined by the fears and pathologies imbued on his body.

FOR SALE: BLACK ATHLETIC BODIES AND COMMODIFICATION Although the commodification of black bodies amid state violence and widespread racism is nothing new, considering the histories of Hollywood, jazz, minstrelsy, or even athletes enslaved on plantations (Rhoden, 2006), the hyper commodification of the contemporary black athlete, alongside expansive processes of globalization, growth in the profitability of black bodies, and their importance within colorblind discourse, demonstrates the importance of commodification within our new racist moment. Likewise, the shrinking opportunities afforded to African American youth, alongside clear messages about the path to desired black masculinity (Neal, 2005; Watkins, 1998; West, 1994), push black youth into a sports world where the possibility of striking it rich leads to a ‘‘win at all costs’’ attitude. Robin Kelley argues that African American youth participate in sports or engage

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in other cultural practices as an attempt to resist or negotiate the inherent contradictions of post-industrial American capitalism (Kelley, 1998). Patricia Hill Collins describes this process in the following terms: ‘‘Recognizing that black culture was a marketable commodity, they put it up for sale, selling an essentialized black culture that white youth could emulate yet never own. These message was clear – ‘the world may be against us, but we are here and we intend to get paid’’’ (Collins, 2006, p. 298). Celia Lury concurs, noting that heightened levels of commodification embody a shift from a racial logic defined by scientific racism to one centering on cultural difference. She argues that commodity racism ‘‘has contributed to shifts in how racism operates, specifically to the shift from a racism tied to biological understandings of ‘race’ in which identity is fixed or naturalized to a racism in which ‘race’ is a cultural category in which racial identity is represented as a matter of style, and is the subject of choice’’ (Lury, 1996, p. 169; as quoted in Spencer, 2004, p. 123). In the context of new racism, as manifested in heightened levels of commodification of Othered bodies, racial identity is simply a choice, but a cultural marker that can be celebrated and sold, policed, or demonized with little questions about racial implications (Spencer, 2004, pp. 123–125). Blackness, thus, becomes little more than a culture style, something that can be sold on Ebay and tried on at the ball or some something that needs to be policed or driven out-of-existence. Race is conceptualized ‘‘as a matter of style, something that can be put on or taken off at will’’ (Willis as quoted in Spencer, 2004, p. 123). Collins notes further that the process of commodification is not simply about selling ‘‘an essentialized black culture,’’ but rather a particular construction of blackness that has proven beneficial to white owners. ‘‘Athletes and criminals alike are profitable, not for the vast majority of African American men, but for people who own the teams, control the media, provide food, clothing and telephone services, and who consume seemingly endless images of pimps, hustlers, rapists, and felons’’ (2006, p. 311). bell hooks, who describes this process as ‘‘eating the other,’’ sees profit and ideology as crucial to understanding the commodification of black bodies. ‘‘When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races y affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the other’’ (Hooks, 1992, p. 23). She, along with Collins, emphasizes the importance of sex and sexuality, within this processes of commodification, arguing that commodification of black male (and female) bodies emanates from and reproduces longstanding mythologies regarding black sexual power.

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To understand sports, whether looking into the predominantly white stands or media culture, the backlash against those who threaten the existence of both a commodifiable and pleasurable black athletic body, it is crucial to think about the dialectics between race and commodification, to think about sports, in all its forms, as a playground, where black bodies become the feature, and the most lucrative attraction that elicits the greatest level of animosity when it (he) does not deliver profit, pleasure, and affirmation, all with a smile.

A HIP-HOP INVASION1 At the core of the racialized culture war that came into public sight during the brawl was a battle over the influences of hip-hop on basketball, with headlines reading ‘‘hip-hop hoops feeding negative stereotypes,’’ ‘‘hip-hop culture contributes to NBA’s bad rap,’’ and ‘‘NBA’s problems are cultural, not racial’’ (Celizic, 2004; Limbaugh, 2004; Taylor, 2004; Wilbon, 2004). Lamenting the cost of hip-hop’s intrusion into the league, where fans ‘‘like pro game, not the players’’ because of its ‘‘image problem’’ and its ‘‘punks and thugs,’’ commentators called for action, reform to bring the league back to its glorious (white, and white-controlled) past (Elmore, 2004; Kindred, 2004; Whitlock, 2004a, 2004b). ‘‘As the NBA tries to recapture some respectability in the aftermath of the fight seen ‘round the world, it nervously dances around a misguided culture that’s slowly suffocating the league,’’ wrote Shaun Powell. ‘‘Stern was the man who boldly rescued the NBA from an image of being too black in the late 1970s. Now he must contend with the image of the NBA being too black, in a different sense, in the new millennium’’ (Powell, 2004). Powell not only calls for action, for an effort to rid the league of ‘‘the middle finger mentality’’ that far too many young black players in the league embrace, but emphasizes how the image problem differs from those of years past, given the dominance of young, hiphop influenced ‘‘angry black males’’ who don’t understand what it means ‘‘to be professional and dignified black players.’’ Mike Celizic takes this rhetorical position a step further, not only linking the problems to a cultural shift within the league and calling to ‘‘rebuild the game’’ through an authentic recapturing of love for the game but instituting programs and policies to teach (discipline) or punish the offenders. ‘‘It means taking the teenagers now coming into the league in hand y giving them a support system, hammering home the importance of fundamental values in their lives,’’ he noted. ‘‘That begins with team play, the element that was so

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lacking in Athens. Respect your teammates and your fellow competitors and your fans and the people who write about you and make you famous, and you’ll get it back’’ (Celizic, 2004). Intimating a link between the influx of younger players, hip-hop and the lack of discipline within the league, Celizic demonstrates the backlash experienced by under-20 players that followed the Palace Brawl. As part of larger and longstanding tendency to blame black culture, in this case hiphop, for the pollution, corruption, and denigration of American life, the accusations against hip-hop, against the younger baller, as the seeds that gave rise to the brawl are nothing new. ‘‘America is a country that still fears on a daily basis the black male body’’ (Harrison, 2001, p. x). Herman Gray, in Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representations, notes the links between moral panics, race and popular culture: The discourses of regulation and the moral panics that they helped to mobilize worked for a time in the 1980s to consolidate a neoconservative hegemonic bloc. This bloc routinely used media images of black men and women, the poor and immigrants to represent social crises. Gendered and racialized images of poverty and disenfranchisement became the basis for a barrage of public policies and legislation intended to shore up this hegemonic position and to calm and manage the moral panics construction around race in general and blackness in particular. So often media narratives presume and then fix in representation the purported natural affinity between black criminality and threats to the nation. By fixing the blame, legitimating the propriety of related moral panics, these representations (and the assumptions on which they are based) help form the discursive logic through which policy proscriptions for restoring order – more jails – are fashioned. (Gray, 2005, pp. 24–25)

Just as crime signifies blackness, and vice versa, blackness has come to embody a pollutant within the NBA that necessitates surveillance and regulation. Numerous scholars have noted the simultaneity of commodification – a form of embracement – and demonization of both black male bodies and cultural practices (Collins, 2004; Watkins, 1998; Boyd, 1997, 2003). ‘‘The love of black culture with the simultaneous suspicion and punishment of black bodies is not unusual’’ (Perry, 2005, p. 28), resulting in big contracts and demonization, fanfare and condemnation, and demanding rules and regulations. At the same time, sports writers and NBA league officials have continued to question the ‘‘marriage’’ between hip-hop culture and professional success as ultimately unproductive. Cultural critics and politicians have targeted hip-hop as a pollutant to American values, a cause of sexism, and ultimately a source of corruption to white (suburban) youth (Kitwana, 2005). While many (Boyd, 2004; Wilbon, 2004) continue to

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describe this backlash by NBA fans – by sports consumers – as class-based, as generational, and as one based in values and contempt for hip-hop, it is impossible to understand this opposition and calls for discipline and punishment (in literal and symbolic senses) outside of the realities of racism and more specifically commodity racism. Ann Stoler (1995) argues, in Race and the Education of Desire, ‘‘Racism is not an effect but a tactic in the internal fission of society into binary opposition, a means of creating biologized internal enemies, against whom society must defend itself ’’ (Stoler as quoted in Smith, 2002, p. 123). It ‘‘does not merely arise in moments of crisis, in sporadic cleansings. It is internal to the biopolitical state, woven into the web of the social body, threaded through its fabric.’’ Whether with public debates concerning the on and off court behavior of black ballers, TO’s appearance with a white woman on national television, ‘‘NBA Ballers gone wild’’ (Powell, 2004), or those regarding welfare or drug abuse, communities of color signify the pollution to which the state or the commissioner ‘‘must constantly purify itself ’’ (Stoler as quoted in Smith, 2002, p. 123). Although the state and those governing bodies have always been instrumental in these processes of control, of disciplining toward the construction of productive citizens (profitable), or eliminating toward the annihilation of an unproductive citizenry, commodity culture functions in similar ways: to purify yet maintain an affect of ‘‘authenticity’’ where racial representations are concerned. The ugliness of state violence and white supremacy are erased for the sake of creating and marketing blackness that exists seemingly for the sole purpose of fulfilling white men’s physical desires, both on and off the court.

DON’T FUCK WITH BRON: THE NBA’S GENTLE WARRIOR The 2004 Nike campaign featured LeBron James battling an unspecified number of Asian martial artists, all of whom are highly racialized within the fantastical Temple of Fear. The commercial shows James, the second-year sensation of the Cleveland Cavaliers, in a video game–style setting defeating the kung fu master, two women in traditional Chinese attire and a pair of dragons, considered a sacred symbol in traditional Chinese culture, in a game of one-on-one. Neither the power of kung fu nor the ferocity of the dragons holds James back, who not only scores on his opposition, but does so using karate style moves and kicks.

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The ad quickly generated outrage from the Chinese government, who denounced its release as an affront to Chinese culture. Denigrated by China as blasphemous, the limited critical discourse has focused on the ways the commercial demeans China and appropriates an Orientalist vision of Chinese culture. Following its decision to ban the commercial from China, a major blow to Nike’s (and the NBA’s) plan to capitalize on the blossoming Chinese basketball market, a government representative issued the following statement about the advertisement: It ‘‘violates regulations that mandate that all advertisements in China should uphold national dignity and interest and respect the motherland’s culture. It also goes against rules that require ads not to contain content that blasphemes national practices and cultures.’’ The statement additionally noted, ‘‘The ad has received an indignant response from Chinese viewers’’ (China: Ad insults national dignity, 2004). Others within the Chinese community expressed similar outrage within the United States. ‘‘Kung fu and the dragon, both are symbols of national pride,’’ contended Sujian Guo, the editor of the Journal of Chinese Political Science in San Francisco. ‘‘It feels like American culture has defeated Chinese culture. American basketball has defeated Chinese culture and they feel offended and humiliated’’ (Han, 2004). While never referencing racism or the long history of Western fetishization/demonization of the ‘‘Eastern Other,’’ this critical rhetoric clearly embraces, if not endorses, claims of racism. As such, I view the commercial through a different paradigm that links its ideologies, images, and aesthetics to a longstanding history of western (white) demonization of Asia; it fits with the historical practice of imagining the ‘‘East’’ through an Orienatalist framework. Edward Said defines Orientalism in the following terms: ‘‘By Orientalism I mean several things, all of them, in my opinion, interdependent. The most readily accepted designation for Orientalism is an academic one, and indeed the label still serves in a number of academic institutions. Anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient–and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist–either in its specific or its general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she says or does is Orientalism y’’ (Said, 1979, p. 2). Stuart Hall concurs, stating in his essay, ‘‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora,’’ that the representation of people of color is ‘‘not only, in Said’s ‘Orientalist’ sense, were we constructed as different and other within the categories of knowledge of the West by those regimes. They had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as ‘Other’ y It is one thing to position a subject or set of peoples as the Other of a dominant discourse. It is quite another thing to subject them to that

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‘knowledge,’ not only as a matter of imposed will and domination, but by the power of inner compulsion and subjective conformation to the norm’’ (Hall, 2003, p. 236). It is within this discursive field that I examined Nike’s Temple of Doom commercial. The emphasis on the fantastical world of the Orient, with all the trappings of the exotic, mysterious, sinister, and magic, all replicate longstanding Orientalist ideologies. The inscription of enemies as ‘‘cunning’’ and deceitful is especially revealing within this context. Yet, this world of magic, of martial arts is no contest for the talents, the physical strength, and the body of LeBron James, this free-floating signifier. Although the ‘‘race card’’ discourse never emerged, with nationality trumping the racial implication of the commercial, the media reaction undermined claims of ethnocentrism while further erasing the racial history and significance of the commercial. Described as edgy and controversial, Nike representatives and media critics have equally dismissed the criticism. In response to the condemnation and its commercial being banned, Nike quickly apologized, claiming ignorance to the purported offense. Shelly Peng, a representative of Nike within China, announced that, ‘‘It was not Nike’s intent to show disrespect to the Chinese culture’’ (Han, 2004). The mainstream U.S. media dismissed the reaction as excessive, unwarranted, and not surprising, given their political orientation. Others focused on Nike’s tendency toward controversy, linking this commercial to a long history of Nike’s efforts that include Charles Barkley’s ‘‘I am not a role model,’’ Tiger Woods’ ‘‘Is the world ready for me,’’ and a commercial featuring Suzy Hamilton being chased by a masked man with a chain saw. Take the following examples as representative of the U.S.-based discourse: ‘‘Nike has a well-deserved reputation for sailing close to the edge in its advertising-so it’s no surprise that a Nike ad courts controversy,’’ argued marketing professor John Quelch, a senior associate dean at the Harvard Business School. Bruce Newman, a professor of marketing at DePaul University, concluded along similar lines, noting the possibility that the ad ‘‘could be an ignorant mistake, or a marketing misfire,’’ yet left the door open for alternative interpretations. ‘‘But it could also be a case of knowing that if they can connect with a young audience – which I’m guessing is in the hundreds of millions, there could be a swelling of demand such that they could care less about what the government says’’ (Han, 2004). Just as it is important to reflect upon the anti-Asian, Orientalist, nature of the commercial, it is equally important to reflect on its racial politics inside the United States. While both the league and its media partners have celebrated Yao Ming’s arrival in the NBA, this commercial equally plays as a backlash against the ‘‘Asian’’ (foreign) invasion into American sporting

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arenas. LeBron defends American basketball purity in defeating the enemies of the ‘‘East.’’ This irony of claiming a black man as the defender of American cultural (basketball) purity, given the demonization of contemporary black athletes, is not lost here; yet, it is no coincidence that LeBron, the NBA’s newest golden child, is imagined as apart from hip-hop, the ghetto, and the other pollutants that corrupt the NBA. As the discourse has obfuscated the Orientalist implications of the commercial as part of a long history of anti-Asian popular culture, the antiblack racial elements have been lost on the American public discourse. The Nike commercial, as with much of today’s commodity culture, reifies dominant visions of black physicality, as people of superhuman strength. In this commercial, as in his comic book for Power Aid, the camera, with its manipulation of image (slow motion) and angles, emphasizes his body, his excessive muscles, and unimaginable strength as explanation for his dominance on the court. No opposition, even those with powerful punches and kicks, can prevent him from elevating to the basket. He is powerful, productive, and a ‘‘credit to his race.’’

IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLAN, IT’S T-MAC Nike has not been alone in selling its products on the backs of black bodies through commodifying the superhuman athleticism of today’s black athletes. Adidas, attempting to compete with the powerful shoe companies, has recently begun its own national campaign featuring Tracy McGrady. In this commercial, McGrady dribbles furiously as soldiers in white uniforms shoot in his direction and helicopters tied to his body attempt to thwart his drive to the basket. As planes and men shoot in McGrady’s direction, he weaves in-and-out, dodging their deadly obstacles as he fulfills his mission to score, to entertain, and to generate dollars for his overseers. Not bullets, Huey Helicopters, tanks or any military arsenal can stop this physically gifted man, especially while wearing Adidas basketball shoes. The commercial is visually powerful, with this large black man avoiding and ignoring the military assault against him (think about this imagery – a black man so focused on sport, of eliciting pleasure for white men, that he would traverse a military battlefield) waged by these small, white-clothed men, with military weaponry. His physical dominance (blackness) overpowers their technological strengths (whiteness). The commercial appears to be straight from King Kong, with McGrady donning the role of King Kong,

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uncontrollable because of his power, yet domesticated enough to elicit pleasure from the white populace. The commercial is equally striking because of its military themes, especially considering that ‘‘we are at war’’ with nations that are subject to anti-Asian, Orientalist discourse in the mainstream American media. Over the past two years, media and fans alike have chastised several athletes, from Kevin Garnett to Kellen Winslow, for invoking military language and references to war to describe their sports world. Yet, the same discourse does not carry into this celebratory commercial. In both commercials, the power and physical stature of two black (athletic) male bodies is no match for either the Orientalist skills of those guarding the Temple of Doom or the military sentinels protecting the basket from a T-Mac dunk. The practice of using blackness to sell products to predominantly white consumers is longstanding. From pancakes and breakfast cereal to alcohol and sports apparel, businesses have historically used a palpable blackness defined by either clownish qualities or physical control to draw in white consumers. While no longer anonymous and service-oriented like Aunt Jemina or Uncle Ben, LeBron, TO, and T-Mac are no less reflective of this history of commodity racism. As Anne McClintock argues in Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, racism does not merely penetrate the surface of media culture through advertisements, but constitutes a project to which whites connect race, pleasure and service (1995, pp. 31–35). Although the discourse positions these commercials and the place of athletes within public spaces as a sign of progress, the changes reflect a movement away from docile images to those of hyper-physicality, both of which reduce blackness to animal-ness. Whether it is the hypersexual Owens or the King Kong-like T-Mac and LeBron, the danger and problematics of their commodified bodies reflects their threat to ‘‘traditional values’’ as well. Nicolette Sheridan and the discourse of reaction serves to control the sexuality of Owens, and the unidentified white men and their military hardware control/watch T-Mac, so that each can fulfill their responsibilities of playing football and basketball. James, as one of the ‘‘good’’ black athletes, is never in question, as he is productive toward the control and disarming of the Asian other. As black bodies persist as sources of pleasure, profit and control, an Orientalist discourse maintains a long history of commodity racism concerning Asian communities. The recent Nike commercial reifies hegemonic visions of Asianness. Simultaneous to both racial projects (blackness and Asianness), a discourse that dismisses and erases the significance of racial

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(racist) meaning keeps critique at arm’s length, celebrating sports culture for its elevation of people of color and bridging communities/nations together through mutual admiration and dreams of success. In the world of sports, nowhere is this bridge more apparent than in the realm of video games. Here, those who ‘‘naturally’’ lack in physical-athletic prowess (white men) can fulfill their desires to conquer the world of basketball through the bodies of athletic black men. The sports/video game consumer can live in his own world, yet can play (dominate) in the world of the u¨ber-physical black athlete.

NEO-AGE MINSTRELSY: OWNING BLACK BODIES AND EA SPORTS In June 2005, Electronic Arts, one of the largest video game manufacturers in the world, announced that second-year Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade would serve as the game’s cover athlete and spokesman for NBA Live: 2006. While coming off a stellar season, many including Wade himself expressed shock at his being selected for this honor. ‘‘This is quite an honor to be named cover athlete of NBA LIVE in just my second year as a professional,’’ Wade announced in EA Press Release. ‘‘When you look back at some of the great players who have had this opportunity, it’s exciting to be a part of the EA SPORTS family and contribute to a game I’ve been playing for more than 10 years’’ (Dwyane Wade will cover NBA LIVE 06, 2005). On www.Hoops.com, fans expressed dismay at his selection, wondering why Kobe Bryant or Allan Iverson, amongst others, had not yet been selected by EA Sports to don the game’s cover. Citing statistics, player popularity, championship rings (for Kobe), and of course length of tenure in the league, numerous discussants provided as to why Kobe and Iverson were more deserving of this honor. Many, however, disagreed, celebrating EA’s decision as daring and a breath of fresh air. Noting Wade’s game, sexiness, popularity within all demographics, personality, and teamfirst approach to basketball (he is humble; he respects the game), many online discussants pointed to the selfishness, arrogance (Iverson to a lesser degree), and criminal histories as the explanation for why Wade (compared to Bryant) was an obvious choice. In other words, Dwyane Wade’s ascendance to EA Sports/NBA Live pitchman and his emergence as the poster boy for the NBA had as much to do with his perceived personality and demeanor – the manageability of his blackness – as it did with the

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prowess of his basketball game. Todd Boyd, in Basketball Jones, argues that ‘‘Americans love their black athletes who behave properly and stay in their place’’ (Boyd, 2000, p. 65). As with previous covers, which have included Carmelo Anthony – who was able to capitalize on his all-American collegiate image by signing with EA prior to his first game in the NBA (and the media/ fan backlash against him) – Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Antoine Walker, the chosen cover imaged demonstrated that only certain black players needed to apply. Each reflecting a commodifiable (some edge but not threatening) and safe embodiment of blackness, EA has a long tradition of selling a particular type and representation of black athletes. The efforts to sell and control particularly marketable black NBA bodies (i.e., those that are celebrated as the ‘‘good ones’’) was taken to a new level with its 2005 ad campaign, not only selling its game through ‘‘well-behaved’’ and ‘‘non-threatening’’ black male bodies, like Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady, but through reminding players of their power in virtual reality to control, if not own, black male bodies. Released in September 2005, the national campaign for NBA Live sought to remind its consumers that 2006, more than any previous version and certainly more than any other game, provides game players the opportunity ‘‘to be inside these players’’ (‘‘EA Sports Commercial: Behind the Scenes’’). Beginning with Tracy McGrady dribbling inside an empty gym, amid only the sounds of the ball pounding the court and his shoes squeaking, the commercial for NBA Live: 2006 initially resembles most basketball-related commercials. McGrady slides toward the basketball, rising up to offer one of his patented power dunks. It seems as if he is practicing, honing his game (note he is not shooting free throws, doing dribbling exercises, or working on the fundamentals of defense) for the next Sportscenter highlight, yet rather than attempting another dunk he instead dribbles toward center court. The camera pans, never shifting its distant but controlling gaze from his eyes, even as viewers now see the backs of several other players: Tim Duncan, Jermaine O’Neal, Steve Nash, Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett, and Dirk Nowitski. Faced with his adversaries, McGrady suddenly stops when he arrives face-to-face with Dwyane Wade, for what appears to be a meeting or a passing of the torch between old and new generations of well-behaved ballers. Eyeballing the players, McGrady’s body quickly opens just as a Transformer did in the 1980s and 1990s, exposing not muscles and vital organs but wires and machinery. Inside this MACHINE (AKA Tracy McGrady) sits a young male, who is obviously done with McGrady, not surprising given his age, jumping out and quickly stepping into Dwyane Wade, or his cyborg/machine like body that stood waiting for someone

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to control him. After he enters the machine, securely fastening himself, the BODY closes, as to make the white male disappear. The greatness of NBA Live is that white males can control black male bodies without anyone knowing who truly has the power. Wade, under the control of this white youth, then steals the ball from a new statue-like McGrady, who of course lacks power without his white male controller. The commercial quickly then jump cuts into a virtual reality with Wade crossing over his dribble, spinning and finishing with a ‘‘tomahawk dunk,’’ as the announcer declares: ‘‘All their moves under your control: NBA Live 2006.’’ According to the commercial, the excitement of NBA Live: 2006 rests not just with ‘‘Living in Your World’’ while ‘‘Playing in Ours,’’ but having the opportunity to become and control the most athletic and physically dominant athletes in the world: the black baller. High-Tech Blackface2 In responding to the increasing popularity of video games, especially those sports and ghetto-centered games, Adam Clayton Powell III described video games as ‘‘high-tech blackface,’’ arguing that ‘‘because the players become involved in the action y they become more aware of the moves that are programmed into the game’’ (Marriott, 2003). As to generate a more complete understanding of the 2005 NBA Live commercial as well as the common tropes of contemporary NBA marketing, the following section explores how sports games in particular reflect a history of minstrelsy, providing its primarily white creators and players the opportunity to become black (Costikyan, 1999). In doing so, these games elicit pleasure, all while playing on white fantasies and affirming white privilege through virtual play. More importantly, they, like the commercials, reify white power and control in the face of the undisciplined and wild black male athletic body. According to Eric Lott (1993), minstrelsy was a ‘‘manifestation of the particular desire to try on the accents of ‘blackness’ and demonstrates the permeability of the color line’’ (as quoted in Rogin, 1998, p. 35). Blackface ‘‘facilitate[s] safely an exchange of energies between two otherwise rigidly bounded and policed cultures’’ (Lott as quoted in Rogin, 1998, p. 35). Video games operate in a similar fashion, breaking down boundaries with ease, allowing players to try on the other, the taboo, the dangerous, the forbidden, and the otherwise unacceptable (Lott as quoted in Rogin, 1998, p. 35). The commercial itself makes this opportunity clear as players can control and become a black NBA star.

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The Virtual Black Athletic Body The sports gaming industry is the crown jewel of the video games world. It is a one billion dollar per year industry. Sports games account for more than 30% of all video games sales. NBA Live, alongside John Madden football, has consistently been atop the sales charts. In 2002 alone, EA Sports sold 4.5 million units (Ratliff, 2003, p. 96). ‘‘Today’s gaming resides squarely in mainstream America, and for them fantasy means Tigers and Kobes’’ (Ratliff, 2003, p. 96). As such, sports games represent a genre in which characters of color exist as actors (protagonists) rather than victims or aesthetic scenery. It becomes quite clear through these games that blacks dominate America’s major sports and do so because of genetics. Blacks make up a disproportionate number of athletes in both the real and imaginary because of what is promoted as their innate athletic superiority. The fixation, if not fetish, on black physicality, muscularity, and athleticism is not particular to virtual reality, as evident by Tracy McGrady’s ability to withstand a military assault, amongst other examples; yet, the availability of black male bodies for purposes of play within sports video games is a powerful continuation of minstrelsy. The genre of sports games represents a site of pleasure in which game players secure happiness through the virtual occupation of black bodies. King and Springwood argue that the ‘‘black athlete has been constructed as a site of pleasure, dominance, fantasy, and surveillance’’ (2001, p. 101). Reflecting the real world of sports and its discourse, sports games indulge white pleasures as they affirm stereotypical visions of black bodies as physical, aggressive, and violent, while simultaneously minimizing the importance of intellectualism and hard work in understanding the supposed dominance of black athletes. While ideas of minstrelsy and racial cross-dressing are useful in understanding the video game industry as a whole, these ideas are most helpful in discussing sports games. Sports games represent a site in which white hatred and disdain for blackness and its love and adoration for blackness is revealed through popular culture. Video games reflect ‘‘the dialectical flickering of racial insult and racial envy, moments of domination and moments of liberation, counterfeit and currency’’ (Lott, 1993, p. 18). In other words, these games reveal white supremacy in the form of both contempt and desire. The contempt materializes in different ways, but in reflecting an oppositional binary, sports games legitimize stereotypical ideas about black athletic superiority and white intellectual abilities. The adoration materializes in the approval and value we offer black athletes,

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whether through financial rewards, posters on our walls, or imitation. Video games fulfill white desire not only to emulate Allen Iverson’s killer crossover, Shaquille O’Neal’s thunderous dunks, Dwyane Wade’s power drives to the basket, or Jason Kidd’s creativity, but allow the virtual occupation and control of these athletic black bodies. They provide the means to experience these supposedly unattainable skills, while deriving pleasure through black male bodies; the desire to ‘‘be black’’ because of the stereotypical visions of strength, athleticism, power, and sexual potency all play out within the virtual reality of sports games. As Elijah Anderson observes, ‘‘Blacks have always been the other in this country. A lot of people living in the suburbs admire this fire and this funk they see in blacks, a kind of aggressiveness a lot of them want too. A lot of these suburban, whitebread kids hunger for this kind of experience’’ (Marriott, 1999). As with the history of minstrelsy, sampling the other is not liberating or transgressive: it does not unsettle dominant notions through breaking down barriers or increasing exposure. The ideas of blackness introduced through video games reflect dominant ideologies, thereby providing sanction for the status quo, legitimacy for white supremacy, and evidence for the common sense ideas of race, gender, sexuality, and nation. While the previous discussion was particular to the cultural and pedagogical implications of sports video games, the connections between the marketing practices of the NBA and Madison Avenue and game producers should be clear, given their particular representations of black male bodies, their imagining of blackness as a source of white fear and pleasure, the tendency to reduce blackness to sites of control and commodification, and the commonplace re-inscriptions of minstrelsy, not only demonstrate the new racist ties across various cultural institutions, but the practice of producing manageable and profitable black baller bodies. The Nike/Foot Action campaign featuring Jermaine O’Neal reveals the varying forms that racialized minstrelsy becomes commodity: that the athleticism of black men can, literally, be purchased and executed to the advantage of white men.

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE BLACK: HOW TO RENT A NEGRO BALLER Also set in one of America’s many gymnasiums (in the world of television, the absence of funding from the federal and local government has not resulted in the closure of or privatization of basketball courts), Jermaine

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O’Neal’s 2005 Nike/Foot Action commercial begins as six teenage boys battle in a game of three-on-three. It is clear that one team is being dominated by the other, which coincidentally has the lone two black players on the court. Interestingly, the dominating team is also skins, amplifying their physical superiority, with the camera gazing at their muscular and sweaty black bodies. Talking trash and dunking with a significant amount of ferocity, this team does not merely beat its opposition, but punishes, humiliates, and ultimately schools its opponent. The commercials make this clear, as one of the losing members of the all-white team dejectingly walks outside. He is clearly defeated and in juxtaposition to the winning players, whose physical and mental (confidence) prowess are evident in just a few seconds of play and post-game celebration; he seems to be a boy who just lost to a group of men. Better said, he is white and he had no chance of competing against a black male, much less two, on the court. He storms outside to cool off and get something to drink. However, he does not find water or Gatorade available in the vending machine, but rather an opportunity to dominate on the court notwithstanding his whiteness. He sees that the vending machine is selling shoes, with the camera fixating on a pair of white and yellow Nikes. In need of help (‘‘it’s gotta be the shoes’’), he selects this pair, paying the requisite dollar (in a world in which shoes cost less than five dollars to make yet cost over a $100 to buy, where youth have killed over shoes, the thought of shoes costing one dollar is certainly laughable). Yet, as he removes the shoes from the machine, viewers realize that he didn’t buy a pair of shoes, but Jermaine O’Neal, the perennial allstar from the Indiana Pacers. It’s gotta be more than the shoes – it’s gotta be the racial demographics of the team, and with O’Neal and the infusion of blackness, the all-white team would have a chance. For just a dollar, he was able to purchase a man, an NBA star, in fact. Pulled from a vending machine like a candy bar, and thereby reduced to a commodity to be bought (and sold) by white youth, O’Neal appropriately asks the kid: ‘‘Do you need help?’’ Almost rhetorically, given his blackness and his owner’s whiteness, the commercial cuts back to the court where O’Neal is in full domination mode: dunking on his opponents, knocking them to the ground, and swatting their shots into the stands, as the announcer reminds the audience that while they can’t really buy Jermaine O’Neal, they can buy his shoes: ‘‘Jermaine’s NIKE Shox Ups only at Finish Line.’’ Given the history of American slavery, the mere premise of this commercial, one that attempts to sell shoes through a neo-slave narrative, is revealing. As we look beyond the basics of the commercial and its representation of the black body (shirtless; sweaty) as athletic, physically

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gifted, dominating and powerful, whether as high school kid or professional athlete, this commercial offers several revealing arguments. (1) It is not all about the shoes, but all about the shoes worn by black athletes. While it is unlikely that Jermaine O’Neal will be for sale at your local gym, the chance to wear his shoes, to adorn a whitened body with his shoes, holds the potential to allow America’s white youth to dominate the court and their black peers. (2) More importantly, the commercial reduces and celebrates the black baller as the ultimate commodity. It makes clear that the best and most productive black male body is one that is under control of whiteness; his freedom is thus only procured if and when a white youth (and not a black youth who obviously doesn’t need help given his own athleticism) is in need of help. Just as with the commercial for NBA Live, whiteness here is marked or celebrated as an agent of control, as the powerful, as the puppeteer, who decides if and when the black male is allowed to play (perform) and under what context he is allowed to be on the court. Blackness is thus desired only when controlled and managed by whiteness – in these scenarios, it is thus productive and in being productive, black male bodies provide both pleasure and assistance to whiteness. (3) The commercial certainly plays on discourses of surveillance and control. In offering a neo-slave narrative, it not only constructs O’Neal as a commodity, but imagines him as a caged animal, who although physically gifted and powerful is dangerous and threatening under certain condition. As a participant in the Palace Brawl, O’Neal’s inclusion in the commercial is especially powerful. Locked inside the vending machine, O’Neal is under control – his ‘‘release’’ comes only when a white takes control, which means he is still under control. Reinforcing dominant ideas about black male bodies as physically powerful and athletic to the point of danger, as well as those that celebrate (or necessitate) control and surveillance, this Nike/Finish Line commercial points the nature of commodity racism within NBA advertising, in which the black body functions as a source of adoration and fear, where the tropes of savagery and slavery reinforce the place of the black body as object both profiteering and control.

CAN I GET A WITNESS: BRON-BRON SAVES THE DAY I would be remised if I didn’t make mention of the two recent LeBron James commercials given my focus on NBA blackness, commodification,

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New Racism, and widespread efforts to control and manage black bodies within commercial culture. Lisa Guerrero describes one of them in the following way: His highly popular series of Nike commercials with the ‘‘LeBrons’’ is a good example of the way in which blackness is utilized as a signifier in the marketing of James as respectable, authentic, and racially ‘‘other,’’ though not racially threatening. In the series, James plays all four characters in the fictitious ‘‘LeBron’’ family, including Pops, the older LeBron brother who is suave in a retro, Billy Dee Williams kind of way, LeBron himself who is always dressed in his NBA uniform, and little LeBron junior who is constantly outside of the family exchanges because he always has his headphones on. All of the commercials in the series center around the family talking about some aspect of basketball, be it Pops’ glory days or LeBron’s new sneaker, and recall popularized versions of ‘‘the black family’’ as entertaining from ‘‘Good Times’’ to ‘‘Family Matters.’’ y Like most of Nike’s campaigns, the ‘‘LeBrons’’ series focuses little time on the product of shoes, and centers more clearly on the product of LeBron himself. The series shows that not only is LeBron a hardwood maestro, but he’s also funny, entertaining, and can dance well; the unstated implication being, ‘‘just like all black people.’’ He remains ‘‘safe’’ because he exists in an immovable racialized space created by the public and the market culture that manages racial panics by locating blackness in confined performative geographies like athletics and entertainment, in other words, in a world of blackness that is understandable because it is the one that exists in the national imagination. (Guerrero, in press)

Most significantly, this commercial unusually situates the world of basketball off the court, and outside the aesthetics of a hip-hopped basketball culture, presenting Lebron in a more domesticated (whitened) setting, with his four likenesses sitting around a dinner table surrounded by Crate and Barrel de´cor while elevator music plays in the background. While some might argue that Nike’s decision to film its LeBron advertising spots off-the-court challenges hegemonic marketing strategies that constrain black NBA bodies to spaces and identities of baller and hip-hop, the commercial still makes clear that LeBron (or all four LeBrons) is a basketball player, given that all he talks about off the court is basketball and his career on the court. More importantly, in domesticating LeBron, while deploying strategic and subtle markers of blackness (macking in the mirror, singing of Rick James’ ‘‘Superfreak’’), these commercials (there are four different versions) reflects the current practice, within the NBA and its corresponding marketing apparatus of representing and selling a manageable blackness that simultaneously emphasizes the coolness/edge of black bodies, while maintaining control and surveillance over these potentially transgressive black bodies. While certainly different from LeBron’s initial NIKE commercial and that of Tracy McGrady, both of which commodified a physically powerful black body in an effort to sell shoes, this newest

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installment for LeBron offers a commodifiable blackness that can be both celebrated and emulated, without being feared. Likewise, the commercial, while not selling the possibility of becoming or controlling specific black bodies, it situates LeBron – by domesticating, by having him play a childlike and elderly LeBron in a time and space where control is not necessary – he is so unusual, he is not like the rest of ‘‘them’’ (the hip-hopped NBA baller; black youth), especially when imagined in a domesticated setting where instruments of control and surveillance are neither necessary nor desired. This becomes even clearer through Nike’s second LeBron campaign – WITNESS. Using shots of impoverished Cleveland neighborhoods and fans celebrating his on-the-court brilliance, the Witness commercial/campaign confirms that he (like Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd, Tim Duncan) is one of the respectable ones; he is a team-first, not-saggin, likable black baller who neither needs to be under surveillance or control. His greatness rests with its likeability and commodifiability in absence of management and image manipulation. Given that he is out-of-the ordinary – a credit to his race – fans and the league should sit back and bear witness to his greatness. Unlike with Michael Jordan, in which the populace was told ‘‘to be like Mike,’’ LeBron’s greatness, his god-like status (he is King James) not only renders being like him impossible (like with T-Mac and Jermaine O’Neal you can buy his shoes, though), but concludes that surveillance as control is superfluous – we as fans should merely witness and enjoy his greatness. Both Nike commercials not only construct LeBron as the model minority of sorts for the NBA and its marketing partners, as a safe, respectable, manageable, and commodifiable blackness, but in doing so reifies dominant understandings of the NBA baller as threatening, dangerous, polluting, criminalminded, selfish, me-first, tattooed, and ultimately bad for the game and nation. Whereas Jermaine O’Neal and T-Mac require control and oversight, as evident in their commercials, for both marketability and desirability, LeBron exists in another world. In spite of being a young black male in the NBA, he is almost a hyper commodity because he is not too black. David Andrews has argued that ‘‘American culture simply does not tolerate individuals who are, to put it plainly, too black’’ (1996, p. 127). LeBron (and Wade) are not like them, which means for those who are respectable embodiments of blackness, the marketplace, media, and dominant discourses will continue to celebrate, commodify, and praise, whereas those who deviate or challenge hegemonic values and norms control, regulation, and demonization will be the norm. The evolution between his first Nike campaign, which linked his basketball skills with martial arts talents, which elucidated the physical prowess needed to dominate on the court and in an

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ancient karate battle, gave way to a more controlled and attractive LeBron, whose greatness stems not from his physicality or even his superior body, but his demeanor, his personality, and his god-like status in the NBA.

CONCLUSIONS The Monday Night Football skit and the commercials herein, to varying degrees, commodify the black male athletic subject and their spaces of play. The racialized representation of these media spectacles demonstrates the clear ways in which commodity sports culture uses and abuses racialized representations of blackness, all of which emphasize hypersexuality, physicality, and superhuman strength. Amid discourses demonizing black (athletic) bodies as immoral and dangerous, these spectacles illustrate the contradictory place of blackness within popular culture, one that sells and finds celebration while it faces surveillance and opposition. Better said, they represented a response to white fears and loathing of black athletic bodies offering spaces of containment, control, and disciplinarity for those same bodies who don tattoos, storm the stands, or appear in public with white women. Within contemporary sporting cultures/commodity cultures and its surrounding discourses, black bodies are ‘‘treated as ‘throwaways;’ they are bodies contained in the name of justice,’’ writes Ronald Jackson in Scripting the Black Masculine Body. ‘‘By apprehending power via policing and legitimate authority, and by controlling public perceptions about these bodies, negative discursive representations of them become paramount’’ (Jackson, 2006, p. 80). Better said, the calls for a divorce between sports and hip-hop (blackness), the establishment or maintenance of various rules from those regulating on-the-field celebrations and uniform style, to those restricting high school ballers from the NBA and the off-the-field/court behavior, and the celebration of play within black sporting cultures and playing with black sporting bodies, legitimize a conservative white supremacist hegemony, but jointly serves as a vehicle of lynching, one that offers prohibitive and sociocultural penalties to those racialized bodies that are not in ‘‘alignment with what it means to behave ‘normally’’’ (Jackson, 2006, p. 56). As Robyn Wiegman argues, ‘‘Lynching is about the law y the site of normativity and sanctioned desire, of prohibition and taboo y Lynching figures its victims as the culturally abject y’’ (Wiegman, 1995, pp. 81–83). Arguing that NBA sporting cultures and its surrounding industries of commodification, while maintaining longstanding

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representations of black physicality, athleticism, and body as desire/fear/ loathing, its recent commercials, as evident with those starring Jermaine O’Neal, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James, offer a commodified blackness that is controlled, disciplined, and whose existence necessitates white control. As with much of popular culture, the commercials discussed herein represent another instance of lynching, whereupon black bodies are imagined as abject and dangerous, yet desirable given their physical talents and prowess, necessitating a spectrum of control and regulation. It should be clear, through these recent examples, the ways in which the contemporary sports media constructs and deploys racialized tropes and images in its efforts to sell their products – shoes and gear – and their vision of contemporary sports. Yet at the same time, paradigms of colorblindness remain untouched, legitimizing hegemonic visions of contemporary American race politics.

NOTES 1. This section contains parts of a prior essay written by the author entitled, ‘‘The Real Color of Money: Controlling Black Bodies in the NBA,’’ which appeared in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 2006, Vol. 28. No. 2. The material has been included herein with the permission of Sage Publications, Inc., r 2006. 2. This section contains parts of a prior essay written by the author Leonard entitled, ‘‘Live in Your World, Play in Ours’: Race, Video Games, and Consuming the Other’’ which appeared in Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education (Simile), 2003, Vol. 3, No. 4. It is available at http://utpjournals.metapress.com/ content/x0636n54l8g7/?p ¼ 0277e53ae8bf46fcb58610830cd4786f&pi ¼ 15. The material has been included herein with the permission of r University of Toronto Press.

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CONSUMING ‘‘POLYNESIA’’: VISUAL SPECTACLES OF NATIVE BODIES IN HAWAIIAN TOURISM Vernadette V. Gonzalez Upon arriving at the Honolulu International Airport today, tourists immediately encounter a mural-sized image of the tropical fantasy they have been encouraged to anticipate for their Hawaiian holiday. On the way to the baggage claim area, the image arrests and assures: a bare-chested, muscular and very brown ‘‘Polynesian’’ man, skin gleaming in the sun, climbs a coconut tree and promises aloha with his welcoming smile. By the time tourists set foot on O’ahu, they have become familiar with this figure or others like it, and have come to expect the promise of native hospitality embodied by the friendly native. At the information kiosks, the baggage claim, the rental car shuttles, and the hotels, happy brown natives beckon tourists to feel at ease and discover the romance of cultural contact for themselves. Tourists become fluent in this language long before setting foot on Hawai’i. For many, coming to Hawai’i means having bought into a particular idea of paradise sold by the state, tour agencies, hotel chains, airlines, the internet, films, and other media (Yaguchi & Yoshihara, 2002; Goss, 1993). Yet this holiday imagery – and particularly the place of the native body in it – is not merely a fantasy cooked up by a destination to sell itself: it is rooted and steeped in a long tradition of anthropological discourses. Modern anthropology has been instrumental in the production

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of the familiar trope of the primitive, a staple feature of art and literature produced by the West (Torgovnik, 1990). Hawai’i’s islandness is tailor-made for anthropological and tourist desires. Indeed, Geoffrey M. White and Ty Kawika Tengan argue that the emergence of the Pacific as a key region for traditional anthropology was tied to the conventional picture of the Pacific as ‘‘an area of a multitude of indigenous societies where both geography and culture appear as ‘islands’ – small, bounded and isolated’’ (2002, p. 384). Thus the tropical fantasy desired by tourists overlaps with discourses that produce the native as a knowable, observable, welcoming subject, ideal for fulfilling both touristic and anthropological desires. Andrew Ross points out that anthropological narratives about Polynesia (though long revised, updated, and complicated) continue to influence the contemporary tourist industry in the Pacific, feeding handily into easily-digestible myths for tourist consumption (1994, p. 41). This essay explores the ways that anthropological discourses continue to lend themselves to the culture industry of tourism in Hawai’i. What kind of cultural work is performed by cultural tourism practices which are legitimated by anthropological knowledge? That is, when anthropology lends its authority to tourist fantasy, what knowledges and actions are enabled? Cultural tourism, in essence, invites tourists to assume the role of the ethnographer to properly observe the native cultures that are ostensibly disappearing in the face of modernization. The Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC hereafter) the subject of this research, and the producer and disseminator of many of the images that help cultivate tourist fantasies, plays on tourists’ desire for otherworldly, exotic difference and deploys anthropological, scientific authority to guarantee this difference. In this sense, the act of visiting is a continuation of colonial practices of fieldwork and ethnography that combined travel with pedagogy. The tourist-asanthropologist anticipates and consumes familiar tropes of savagery, modernity, and authenticity that in turn draw from well-established and documented anthropological narratives. The image at the airport that advertises the charms of the PCC offers the modern-day possibility of rediscovery, knowledge, and romance for the modern tourist. The stamp of anthropological authority gives this moment of fantasy its potency and allure: it functions as a primer on how to properly consume the native as commodity. Anthropology and tourism, however significant their mutual roles are in the production of the friendly, knowable native, do not work apart from other social processes and institutions. Although this chapter is specifically about the PCC, it is also more broadly about the intersections of capital, knowledge, and desire in a (post)colonial geography.1 The PCC’s production of ‘‘Polynesia’’ as a destination and a set of pleasures rests on

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a particular taxonomy of racial difference, and is managed through a tenuous and tense balancing of (an ahistorical and geographically vague) tropical fantasy, the scientific assurance of anthropological discourses about indigenous peoples, the enabling occupation of Hawai’i by the U.S. military, the missionary work of the Mormon church, and the overtly capitalistic nature of manufactured aloha. The PCC is thus squarely located in the cultures and economies of (post)colonial capital and imperial cultures. In his invocation of an Asia/ Pacific Cultural Studies, Rob Wilson (2000) calls for theories of empire to tie the early exploration and business driven ‘‘peaceful’’ annexation of the Sandwich islands to today’s tourist-driven economy – an approach that would take into account the ‘‘complex global/local dialectics of jet mass tourism and U.S. exoticism projected in the Pacific’’ (p. xi). Likewise, Noel Kent squarely situates the Hawai’i’s present-day condition of being ‘‘under the influence’’ of transnational capital within a long history of empire and profit (1993). Along with the presence of the U.S. military in the Pacific, the culturally familiar colonial archive of the native and what Kent describes as the ‘‘new plantation’’ economy of the exotic combine to produce conditions for a desire to experience carefree island life, albeit in ways that deliberately erase these very enabling conditions as constitutive of the romance of cultural contact. The PCC, with its central place in Hawai’i’s present-day cultural and economic life, points to the sedimented layers of power at play in the production and consumption of ‘‘Polynesia.’’ While waiting at the baggage claim, tourists are also likely to come across one or two young soldiers dressed in fatigues, either waiting for incoming friends or family, or themselves arriving at the most militarized state in the union. Their presence at the airport, that liminal site of threat and promise, serves as a visual reminder that tropical holidays in paradise are secured by their bodies. In Hawai’i’s post-9/11 social world, access to the ‘‘spectacular corporeality’’ of the ‘‘soft primitive’’ is made possible by the military occupation of the state as much as the work of the tourism industry (Desmond, 1999, p. 4). It is almost as if the modern American military is benevolently standing guard over warrior cultures rendered picturesque, yet obsolete.

CULTURES OF IMPERIALISM AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMMODITY RACISM Framing ‘‘Polynesia’’ as a touristic commodity needs to be critically tied to the cultures of imperialism that practiced both scientific racism and produced the commodity spectacle as means to rationalize the often-violent

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project of ‘‘civilizing.’’ In the late 1800s, during the second wave of European and American colonization, the cultural realm mitigated the violence and facilitated the undertaking of empire by the masses as well as providing a space for uneven and heterogeneous responses to colonialism (Pease, 1993). Foremost among these cultural technologies were the advertising industry and the world’s fairs. Displaying the technological prowess and progress of American and European civilization alongside the sideshows of ‘‘other,’’ less civilized cultures, the fairs worked to sell the project of expansion to its audience. For Robert Rydell (1987), these world’s fairs were an effective tool of ‘‘the legitimizing ideology offered to a nation torn by class conflict’’ as well as racial and gender discord (p. 193). Empire was seen to solve these domestic pressures by offering a unifying national project of Manifest Destiny. What advertising and world’s fairs also did was teach an emerging class of consumers how to make sense of the globalizing world and America’s new colonial possessions within a framework of consumer ideology. Fairgoers perused displays of commodities that were cast in racialized terms: from the ‘‘white’’ technologies of the West, to the spectacularized bodies of the Rest. In doing so, they carried out the act of consuming as a rehearsal to the real action in the colonial theater. Anne McClintock (1995) ties the emergence of the commodity in the late 1800s as ‘‘the fundamental form of a new cultural system for representing social value’’ that produced a new, unified and socially cohesive vocabulary across the seemingly impassable borders of class, race, colony-metropole, and gender (p. 208). For McClintock’s colonial project, the commodity form transmuted difference (at home and abroad) into a common, comprehensible, and translatable language. Curtis Hinsley (1991) remarks that the world’s fairs during this period were ‘‘in the final analysis a celebration of market flow’’ where the process of commodification resolved human difference (p. 362). The commodity form thus worked in the service of empire: to make familiar the exotic, to render it consumable. As a spectacular commodity in and of itself, the world’s fairs worked on a grand scale to impart the ideologies of commodity racism to its audience. McClintock (1995) notes a shift in the late 1800s when the efforts of scientific racism (including anthropology, travel-writing and ethnographies) were subsumed and superceded by commodity racism’s ability to ‘‘convert[ ] the narrative of imperial Progress into mass produced consumer spectacles’’ (p. 33).2 Accompanied by the development of photography and the emergence of advertising as an industry, the visual regimes of empire could more thoroughly spread its global project to the masses, rendering the

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colonies into a space where the commodity and consumerism as an ideology could be marketed, whereas scientific racism’s discourses had a more limited scope. Yet perhaps McClintock’s shift is less complete than she portrays: in many ways, science and spectacle continued to inform and draw strength and authority from each other. World’s fairs continued to combine the entertainment value of spectacular exoticism with discourses of scientificity and claims to ethnographic authority. In these venues, inventions and commodities from Euro-American cultures were displayed in the grandiose architectural edifices while the peoples and cultures of the rest of the world (mostly colonized peoples such as Native Americans, Africans, Inuit, and Filipinos) had their own place in the sideshows of ethnographic ‘‘villages.’’ Rydell’s (1987) examination of American international expositions during the late 1800s to early 1900s notes how fairs created spaces where ‘‘ethnological’’ displays of nonwhites were curated by prominent anthropologists and set up as spectacles for public consumption. Effectively sanctioning the racialized and racist displays of people at the fair through anthropological authority, world’s fairs’ balanced both entertainment and science. The racial landscape as commodity spectacle thus offered by the fairs’ organizers (American intellectual, political, and business leaders) performed the multipurpose duty of entertaining and managing the masses while inviting them to take part in the project of American imperialism. Anthropology, though reduced to an entertaining spectacle of pseudoscience in the proto-touristic spaces of the world’s fairs, continued to lend a scientific authority to the taxonomies of race displayed, performed, and consumed at these exhibitions. As a pedagogical tool, the fairs effectively employed the power of amusement with the effective message of eugenics and racial/cultural superiority. The fun of the circus, with its promise of ‘‘freaks,’’ was effectively combined by the sobriety of anthropology, producing a lesson about the proper places of differently racialized colonial subjects, the morality of spreading progress, and the inevitability of the commodity form’s ascendance in the imperial project. Capitalist imperialism, particularly by the United States in the Pacific, went hand-in-hand with the cultures of imperialism epitomized by practices such as the world’s fairs and the rise of mass advertising. Not accidentally, the late 1800s also marked the overthrow of the sovereign kingdom of Hawai’i by American businessmen implicitly backed by the American navy docked in Honolulu harbor and the establishment of an American colony in the Philippines. Staking out its market interests in Asia and the Pacific, and backing capital with gunships was one part of the American imperial

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project. Equally important was the pedagogy of colonial anthropology, which continued to provide scientific evidence of the rightness of the colonial project. The anthropologies of this colonial era were much more complex and complicated than the scope of this essay allows, and many scholars have pointed out the ways in which anthropology was not always the straightforward handmaiden of colonial domination.3 Yet, as Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink (1999) point out, the discipline of anthropology is bound up in the concern over the practical management of cultural differences in the colonial spheres. In Hawai’i, and the Pacific in general, as White and Tengan (2001) observe, colonial anthropology was virtually practiced by outsiders and thus dominated by Western concepts of Pacific indigeneity. Although scholars like James Clifford and Renato Rosaldo have long since problematized the subject of the ethnographic eye with particular attention to questions of imperialism, the anthropological narrative – with its conventions of travel, discovery and exploration – remains a potent touchstone for the Pacific tourism industry (Clifford, 1997; Rosaldo, 1989). Anthropological discourses, established as a central element of imperial projects, remain crucial to the production, consumption, and circulation of touristic regimes of truth in Hawai’i. Because of the illegal military backing of the 1893 overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani by a coalition of American big business, and the subsequent annexation of Hawai’i as a territory in 1898 which disregarded the will of the Hawaiian people, American claims to the islands have always needed reinforcement. U.S. sovereignty in the islands has always been contested (Silva, 2004). Even as the events at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 virtually guaranteed statehood 18 years later, Hawai’i’s earlier history of disenfranchisement and dispossession continues to haunt its image as a tropical paradise. The postwar boom in the tourism industry exploited colonial anthropology’s concepts of race and culture. The demise of colonial capital (epitomized by the sugar plantation industry) and the rise of corporate capitalism (epitomized by tourism) in twentieth-century Hawai’i signaled a shift in the ways in which colonial racial and ethnic taxonomies functioned. From justifying the hierarchies of the plantation economy, racial and ethnic differences were later incorporated into ‘‘the hegemonic structures of power and the ideology of Hawai’i as a multicultural paradise’’ (Buck, 1993, p. 172; Okamura, 1998). In many ways, the racial and cultural justifications for Hawai’i’s plantation labor system have morphed into a less overt language of culture, even as racial ideologies and racial structures continue to underpin the tourism industry’s insistence on a multicultural paradise. The

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kinds of difference produced, disseminated and consumed in these cultural circuits acquire a patina of truth and transparency through a historical association with anthropological methods and people. Within a political economy dominated by tourism, the codes of colonial anthropology find new life, translating complex histories of domination into a neatly packaged tourist experience. Tourism as a culture industry transformed Hawaiian culture into a commodity, drawing from the authority and practice of anthropology in the Pacific. Anthropological conceptions of culture at this point – which emphasized a focus on ritual and observable, discrete cultural phenomenon – were easily translatable to emerging practices of cultural tourism (Rosaldo, 1987). Elizabeth Buck, writing about the emergence of the tourism industry in Hawai’i, describes the reduction of the islands, its people and their cultures into a system of codes about Hawai’i as a consumable paradise (1993, p. 180). As tourism came to dominate the economy of the islands in the post–World War II era, the culture of Native Hawaiians came to be one of the most marketable and visible aspects of a holiday in Hawaii. As the contemporary ‘‘visitor’’ industry in Hawai’i seems to promise, ‘‘Everything in Hawaii can be yours, that is, you the tourists, the non-Natives’, the visitors’. The place, the people, the culture, even our identity as ‘Native’ people y’’ (Trask, 1999, p. 144). Just as the world’s fairs spectacularized and commodified difference, Hawai’i tourism banks on the Native Hawaiian to secure its place in an increasingly competitive industry. As Buck notes, ‘‘Even in the late 1800s, Hawaiian culture was recognized as a resource for a potential visitor industry and Hawaiians as entertainers and an exotic presence that added to the lure of the islands’’ (1993, p. 173). Yet even as Hawaiians came to dominate in the visual economy of tourism, they were relegated to entertainment and service work, if that. In other words, the commodification of Hawaiian culture and bodies signaled a racist socioeconomic structure that relegated Native Hawaiians to the margins even as it depended on their marked and marketable difference. Jane Desmond suggests, in the case of Hawai’i, a different kind of touristic racialization that has to do with an idea of the authentic that has been produced for its massive tourist population. Though the ‘‘ideal’’ Native Hawaiians are displayed in ‘‘nonthreatening, alluring encounter[s] with paradisical exoticism, a ‘soft primitivism’’’ through various performance venues catering to tourists, local ‘‘inauthentic’’ residents keep the tourist industry running (1999, p. 4). In both cases, desirable natives are either absent or made ‘‘friendly’’ for the tourist industries to serve up a guilt-free dish of imperialist nostalgia. Just as they were consigned to the periphery of

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U.S. colonial history, Native Hawaiians remain in the margins of real power in the state’s tourist industry. They are imagined as friendly hosts – for tourist, anthropologist, and soldier – hospitable, safe, and welcoming. Setting up a polynesification of hospitality by adapting various ‘‘friendly’’ island cultures for consumption by Hawai’i’s staggering visitor industry, the PCC engages not only merely in cultural preservation, as it claims, but also in an active myth-making process that naturalizes a racialized division of labor within Pacific tourist circuits. In many ways, the PCC offers authentic contact and interaction with ‘‘natives’’ even as Native Hawaiians have themselves been, and continue to be, displaced by Waikiki’s corporate tourism industry. Today, economic power and decision making, as it was during the decades of colonial capitalism, remains in the hands of owners of land and capital (Buck, 1993; Kent, 1993). Indeed, the PCC is a microcosm of the state. Its location in La‘ie, a small community about an hour from downtown Honolulu, ensures an economic dependence that has been likened to ‘‘the function of an earlier sugar plantation founded by the first Mormon missionaries to supply Utah,’’ drawing attention to the ways it has exploited a readily available and isolated student population as its labor force (Ross, 1994, p. 45). In addition, the PCC has been beleaguered by labor problems stemming from a hierarchical labor structure that eerily and yet strangely and appropriately resembles the haole management structure of colonial days. Despite these potential and actual conflicts, the PCC succeeds wildly in its portrayal and production of an accessible and touristfriendly Polynesian haven.

THE POLYNESIAN CULTURAL CENTER: TOURISM AND ANTHROPOLOGY A visit here represents a chance to travel through Polynesia in a single day, and participate in the celebration of centuries of Polynesian culture – no passport required (Polynesian Cultural Center).

For many tourists who come to Hawai’i, the reality of high-rise hotels, traffic and the predominance of shopping as an activity stand in stark contrast to the nostalgic, soft-focus fantasy of aloha promised by tourist literature. Increasingly, the promise of Native Hawaiian cultural difference is absent from the actual experience of many tourists. There is no Hawai’i in Waikiki. Real Native Hawaiians, modern cosmopolitan subjects themselves, are not exotic enough to meet the needs of tourist fantasy. At the Polynesian Cultural Center, these carefully nurtured tourist desires are met. Offering

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much more than specific Hawaiian cultural contact, the PCC produces and stages a South Pacific menu of culturally specific delicacies under the umbrella of ‘‘Polynesia.’’ Essentially, the PCC is an ethnic reservation where peoples and cultures hailing from an amorphous ‘‘Polynesia’’ are gathered in individual ‘‘islands’’ for the viewing pleasure of paying visitors. With its reputation as the most popular paid attraction in Hawai’i – which is especially impressive due to its steep entrance schedule and noncentral location – the PCC provides one of the premier tourist experiences in the islands. In the 42-acre theme park nestled cozily next to Brigham Young University and the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-Day Saints’ Church (Mormon Church hereafter), longdisappeared native island cultures once again become accessible for tourist entertainment. Busloads of tour groups are disgorged at the entrance pavilion joining tourists in rental cars, their appetites whetted by the giant wooden totems that line both sides of the La‘ie section of the coastal Kamehameha highway and the printed media that saturate the mass tourism scene in Waikiki. Constructed in 1963 to offer up ‘‘Polynesia in a Day,’’ the Polynesian Cultural Center now welcomes over one million guests a year – about half the number of tourists to Hawai’i – to its South Pacific fantasy (Cummings, 1964; Stanton, 1989). Built through the volunteer work of Mormon Church members and community, the PCC became the economic center of the former plantation town of La‘ie, which had been purchased by the Mormon Church in 1865. From its hukilau (a traditional Hawaiian practice of net fishing) roots in the late 1940s, the PCC of today has become more ambitious in scope, handily attending to its generous market share in the tourism industry as well as marketing its increasingly more diverse Polynesian constituency. Established and privately owned and operated by the Mormon Church, the PCC’s mandates are ‘‘(1) to preserve the culture of the Polynesians; (2) to provide employment and work-scholarship support for the students attending the Brigham Young University-Hawai’i Campus y; and (3) to provide direct financial aid to BYU-HI’’ (Stanton, 1989, p. 248). Today, the PCC boasts seven different Polynesian ‘‘islands’’ which represent discrete cultures of the South Pacific: included are Hawai’i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Fiji. As an early publication documents, this miniaturized Polynesian fantasy is meant to evoke rose tinted visions of romance. Sunlit waters fringed with palms y thatched, oddly shaped houses shaded in wood nooks y quaint carvings y the heady perfume of tropic

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flowers y dancing in clearings among the ferns with songs and laughter ringing clear. (Cummings, 1964, p. 4)

Indeed, the PCC successfully cordoned off a spatial and temporal notion of the idyllic and the natural – a perfect stage for modern-day would-be explorers to encounter dancing and singing natives. On their website, the PCC claims that ‘‘The allure of old Polynesia lingers among the Pacific island people who demonstrate their traditional arts and crafts and perform their lively songs and dances.’’4 The Mormon Church and Pacific Island cultures would seem to be strange bedfellows inasmuch as the former represents an intrusion of alien belief-systems into the latter. Indeed, the history of missionary work in Hawaii has been less about promoting native cultures and more about imposing foreign value systems on them. In the PCC’s mythology about its origins, however, little is made of the potential conflict between outsider missionaries and the Polynesian peoples whom they tried to convert. Instead, the PCC ties the centrality of Polynesian ‘‘authentic’’ and ‘‘traditional’’ cultures to the inception, survival and success of the PCC: In 1959 a group of Polynesian students began to perform respective traditional songs and dances in Waikiki. Calling themselves the Polynesian Panorama, they first appeared at the International Market Place, then moved to what was called ‘‘the dome’’ at the Kaiser Hawaiian Village (now the Hilton Hawaiian Village), and by 1961 – the same year Church College became a four-year university – they were performing to sell-out crowds at the Waikiki Shell. The tourists loved them.5

Framing the project as a community effort designed to help the Church, the college students and the community, the PCC produced, recruited and packaged Polynesian culture for tourist consumption. This continued assertion of the community roots of the PCC’s origins (as opposed to its capitalistic structure or its conversion mission), as well as the constant reminders that PCC revenues serve Polynesian students, also operate to remind tourists that this is truly an authentically native space. The insistence on community and thus, authenticity, is central to the PCC because it sells culture. On its website, authenticity is a key word, guaranteeing the ‘‘realness’’ of the PCC experience. In the history section of the website, for instance, actual Polynesians are documented building the traditional structures that tourists explore: A special contingent of over 100 Maori came at their own expense from New Zealand to help get their ‘‘village’’ ready and participate in the opening ceremonies. Other Polynesians from the South Pacific had contributed building materials, and

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the late Queen Salote of Tonga sent two of her master builders to ensure that the quarter-scale model of her summer palace [was] created appropriately.6

The centrality of anthropology in producing an authentic native performing authentic cultural practices is crucial, despite the Disney-like feel of the PCC. Employing a wide variety of ‘‘cultural specialists,’’ faculty, scholars and ‘‘highly respected representatives’’ of Polynesian cultures, the PCC prides itself on its project of cultural preservation, recalling not only an anthropological benevolence, but also a missionary tolerance of certain aspects of ‘‘native culture’’ that plays handily into tourist exchange. In successfully packaging the tourist-friendly aspects of various Polynesian cultures, and setting up discrete ‘‘islands,’’ the PCC follows the Western conventional model that made the Pacific the ultimate anthropologist fantasy. Indeed, much of the scholarship on the PCC focuses on the level of accuracy of its portrayals of certain discrete cultures, noting its important role in cultural preservation and pedagogy.7 According to Max Stanton, a BYU-based anthropologist and scholar, the PCC was ‘‘basically an attempt to reconstruct lifestyles that are vanishing or have disappeared in the wake of the vast flood of technological gadgetry of the twentieth century’’ (1989, p. 252). There is nothing at the PCC that indicates the violence of Western incursions into the Pacific, nothing that provides a context for why these lifestyles may be vanishing in the first place. Even as contemporary anthropologists have by and large abandoned narratives of the idyllic purity of natural native life, the tourist industry continues to produce and sell the romance of cultural contact in many guises. The PCC savvily taps into the attraction and authority of the authentic by deploying anthropology as a guarantor. The PCC’s attractiveness to tourists is also based on its close adherence to a narrative of cross-cultural understanding as fostered by imperial anthropology. Like the world’s fairs exhibits of indigenous peoples, the PCC aims both to entertain and educate. Each island participates in a pedagogical model of tourism, introducing and immersing tourists in the vocabulary of cultural contact and discovery. At each island, a stage or schoolroom is set up to introduce the audience to each discrete culture. Although the Samoan ‘‘show,’’ which has recently been the PCC’s most popular, and the Tongan drumming demonstration, also a favorite, play to the notion of the happy, jolly native, and the other islands are less about comic personalities and more about cultural demonstrations and short lectures on specific cultural practices, all the ‘‘islands’’ undertake pedagogical projects on essentially how to be a native (which dovetail rather

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agreeably with how to be a tourist on vacation). The overall effect is to impart a feeling of having done the duty of getting to know the ‘‘other’’ and engaging in genuine cross-cultural contact while indulging in a tropical fantasy. At the Polynesian Cultural Center, ‘‘Polynesia’’ is constructed through a temporal and spatial freezing of ideas of culture. Through staged performance, the PCC’s self-consciously preservationist project plays up to a touristic idea of native authenticity, encouraging the repetitious enactment of cultural contact and discovery day in and day out on the various ‘‘island’’ stages of Polynesia. Once inside the PCC complex itself, the technologies of display at work continue to be reminiscent of the linked anthropological modes of ‘‘salvage’’ and display, and indeed must reference these familiar narratives to produce difference. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett notes that We have here the major tropes of ethnographic display, from the perspective of the tourism industry – the promise of visual penetration; access to the back regions of other people’s lives, the life world of others as our playground; and the view that people are most themselves when at play and that festivals are the quintessence of a region and its people (1998, p. 62).

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s assessment of the PCC and other cultural heritage tourist destinations points out the seamless connections between touristic and anthropological modes of knowledge. However, these intimacies between anthropology and tourism have significant consequences in Hawai’i. In its highly militarized space, such modes of surveillance and observation serve to confirm that the natives have indeed been tamed, that colonialism and development have secured their loyalty and friendship, that they know their place. Indeed, the performers’ and the website’s repetition of narratives of gratitude to the PCC (for the Mormon mission of conversion and for an education subsidized by tourist dollars) echoes this same confirming perspective of military and missionary domination.

ISLANDNESS Polynesia’s availability for easy access and consumption is predicated on the immobility of the islands in space (accessible to the mobile touring subject), an idea of culture as analogous to authentic, unchanging performance and cultural practices (understandable by the savvy modern subject), and the elision of the larger geopolitical and social forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the cultures and peoples of the Pacific (least of all the

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Mormon Church itself). Culture becomes a display of artifacts, games, rituals and dances that demonstrates the authenticity of each island people as ‘‘truly’’ Polynesian. Such demonstrations of culture draw from an amorphous, pre-contact past that romanticizes a narrative of discovery deeply embedded in a familiar anthropological story. The value of particular cultures lies in their ability to be reconstructed as authentic sets of native practices, encouraging a notion of culture as unchanging, frozen, primitive, and discrete. Conveniently, traditional anthropological treatment of the Pacific islands as geographically and culturally distinct slides smoothly into tourist needs and fantasies. As a site of active production and performance of understood categories of ‘‘native’’ culture, the PCC is spatially constructed as an interactive stage. Spread out over its 42 acres, the 7 islands that make up the PCC’s story of Polynesia offer up neat, bounded cultures for tourist enjoyment. The paved pathways meander from one island to another, broken up by a man-made lagoon, and bordered by lush greenery. More than one scholar has described its layout as reminiscent of indigenous exhibits at World’s Fairs, recalling a kind of human zoo where each ‘‘island’’ showcases a particular notion of traditional timeless culture while visitors roam the well-marked pathways from one exhibit to another (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998; Ross, 1994). The paths and the separate enclosures of islands which house each Polynesian group manage traffic nicely with their walkways that flow from Samoa or Tonga to other Polynesian groups. Each island culture has its separate space, with buildings, presentations, ‘‘everyday’’ anthropological cultural exhibits and demonstrations. Overheard many times at the PCC are sentiments like ‘‘Where’s Tonga at?’’ or ‘‘Tonga’s next door’’ or ‘‘We’ve done Tonga,’’ illustrating the effectiveness and efficiency of the PCC’s technologies of creating new cultural and spatial geographies through claims to authoritative authenticity. Behind each island culture’s distinct spatial and cultural display is the agreeable notion that each can be separately and discretely understood in a short amount of time – the knowability of a simple people remains a potent myth. ‘‘Doing Tonga,’’ after all, is an activity that is estimated to take only 35–45 minutes of one’s day. This speedy educational process is made possible not only by the reduction of complex life-worlds to games and dances, but also by the shorthand of the native body as guarantor of authenticity as I discuss in more detail in the next section. Although Kirshenblatt-Gimblett notes that these native cultures, performances, and histories are not ‘‘found’’ but rather actively produced in a heritage industry, the illusion of discovery structures the way they are packaged for the tourist (1998, p. 150,

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Webb, 1994). More importantly, while the PCC adds ‘‘the value of pastness, exhibition, difference, and, where possible, indigeneity,’’ it does so based on a notion that such qualities are fixed and real: that the real natives are authentically like that (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998, p. 150). The PCC’s success lies in its effective use of the romance of cultural contact and discovery through a formulaic reduction of complex cultural practices into tourable ‘‘islands.’’ The power of its message depends on the stamp of anthropology, which has done the work of distilling each complex worldview, culture, and people, to their most tourist-friendly characteristics. In doing so, tourism and anthropology create unique ‘‘islands’’ that erase the contemporaneity and hybridity of real Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. Anthropological discourses do not merely render complex Polynesian cultures into tourist-friendly packages, they also impart lessons on how to consume these commodified cultures. Ideally, the tourists come to the PCC to visit each island, take a break in mid-afternoon to ‘‘review’’ the different cultures via a canoe pageant in a larger venue with all the other tourists, continue the tour of individual islands, eat dinner (with an international staff of BYU students) and then attend the big night show, which showcases all the ‘‘islands’’ they have learned about. Compressed within the spatial and temporal maps of the PCC, the interactions between tourist and native are managed to produce a distilled and intelligible package of cultural contact – ethnographic fieldwork in a day. The pedagogies of anthropology operate to teach tourists to expect and consume a fossilized notion of culture as part of their Hawaiian holiday itinerary. Significantly, such notions of culture are at odds with the always-already hybridized and emergent practices of culture that are lived out and practiced in the community itself. As a marker of authenticity, corporeality serves to anchor the PCC’s project even in its obvious stagedness. In the PCC’s regimented schedule for tourists, ‘‘native’’ performances are wired into discursive and visual anthropological narratives, establishing the dancing, singing, playing native body as the ultimate arbiter of cultural authenticity. Cast in roles of native informant, yet circumscribed by the scripts of the PCC’s ethnographic/ touristic mandates, performers participate in a visual economy where their bodies ‘‘teach’’ tourists about the facets of ‘‘Polynesian’’ culture. At each ‘‘island,’’ young brown bodies dance, make music and play, reinforcing an understanding of native Polynesian cultures as a series of celebrations and (coincidentally) camera-friendly rituals. What is particularly interesting in the PCC is how the umbrella concept of ‘‘Polynesia’’ exists in tension with the insistence on the specificity of each ‘‘island’’ culture. With the relegation of Native Hawaiians to the bottom

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rungs of the socio-economic ladder in Hawai’i and their material (if not symbolic) absence in the tourism scene at large, the PCC taps into a larger ‘‘Polynesian’’ fantasy to create and fulfill tourist desires of indigeneity and hospitality. ‘‘Polynesia’’ elides this glaring absence through a rearticulation of Hawai’i within the community of larger Pacific Islander nations. In doing so, it allows for a substitution of a generalized cultural fantasy, concealing the violent history of being Native Hawaiian in America (which resists a tourist-friendly narrative). As part of the ‘‘happy people’’ of Polynesia, Hawaiians are rendered within a cultural/racial group loosely based on anthropological practices and discourses in the Pacific. They are more clearly ‘‘them’’ than ‘‘us’’ within this anthropological reconfiguration, even as the history of how Hawaii became a state haunts this narrative.

A VISUAL ECONOMY OF BROWN BODIES The symbolic potency of a brown body – any brown body – to signal Pacific indigeneity and hospitality displaces Native Hawaiians with a broader notion of the Pacific native. It is enough to have a brown body on display to signify the availability of the fantasy of meeting the friendly native and the genuineness of this (paid-for) cultural experience. Circulating in the hightraffic tourist circuits of airport, hotels, and the Waikiki beachfront, these visual images of the ostensibly Hawaiian body set the stage and whet the appetite for the moment of cultural contact that is deemed integral to this tropical holiday. Yet when there are no natives available, others must be invented. ‘‘Polynesia’’ satisfies the broader need for this fantasy, creating a generic exoticic native body from somewhere in the Pacific. Along these lines, the PCC itself does not adhere to a strict regimen of cultural purity among the performers. That is, Samoans learn how to do Hawaiian hula, Tahitians learn to reenact Fijian customs, and Filipinos, as the joke goes, get to be everybody. Though I am not bemoaning this intercultural crossing among the PCC’s performers, I do want to point out that more often than not, the interchangeability of certain bodies across the islands signal the limited vocabulary that is comprehensible about the native within touristic modes of seeing. The PCC thus effectively balances the ‘‘inauthenticity’’ of the specific brown body (though this is never overtly addressed) with assurances that the performance of the ‘‘authentic’’ cultural practice that the tourist is seeing is the real thing (which is always implied). The cultural shorthand that the brown body provides is profound, as demonstrated by the effectiveness of tourism advertising. Brown bodies in the

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context of palm trees, sand and the tropics immediately signal a sedimented, familiar narrative of the friendly native. Judith Williamson (1986), in her study of advertising and the colonial fantasy, argues that within Western capitalist culture, nonwhite women come to represent the ‘‘natural’’ and ‘‘exotic’’ that Westerners fear is being eliminated by capitalist expansion. This highly racialized and gendered fantasy that revolves around the availability and knowability of the brown body infuses Hawai’i’s tourism industry and structures the ways that brown bodies operate in the PCC. As Trask puts it: ‘‘Above all, Hawai’i is ‘she,’ the Western image of the Native ‘female’ in her magical allure. And if luck prevails, some of ‘her’ will rub off on you, the visitor’’ (1999, pp. 136–7). Offering themselves to their customers, brown bodies transform a capitalistic exchange into aloha. An immediate open-armed welcome is apparent at the entrance pavilion, erasing the sting of the costly entrance fee (this reminder that hospitality is being bought, however, is repeatedly brushed aside throughout the day by insisting on the altruistic gesture of the tourist in helping needy students get an education). A small group of ‘‘natives’’ wait in the grassy knoll in the front of the entrance, smiling and greeting visitors as they enter, and providing visual continuity of indigenous hospitality from the image to the flesh. They function as initial markers of costumed native authenticity and hospitality, and offer themselves as such for photographs. Establishing the tone of the PCC through the allure of the friendly, willing and photogenic native ready to be photographed, these greeters are the first in a series of native subjects made physically available to the tourist. Moreover, they establish the dialectical relationship between mobile, modern touring subject and the tradition-bound, preserved and protected object of tourism. Though they are not exactly the ‘‘disappearing native’’ of colonial anthropology, within the PCC’s staged cultural geographies, these greeters and performers are hard at work performing (and according to the PCC, preserving) a culture that is ostensibly at odds with tourist modernity. Yet, reenacting the familiar poses of the white anthropologist with darkskinned, half-naked ‘‘savages,’’ the entrance ritual of greeting and photography rearticulates the fantasy of cultural contact and racial hierarchies in an updated way, documenting the tourist experience with its story of benign cultural contact. In the last instance, even if tourists take part in the PCC’s rituals with tongues-in-cheek, these repetitions serve to reinforce, if not the story of authenticity, a narrative of ahistoricism. That is, their tourist experience become more easily divorced from the conditions and histories (of missionary conversion, plantation economies and military occupations) that make it possible.

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Although the anthropologist/ethnographer role is no longer played by the white male in khaki with pith helmet, and more often signified by a crowd of smiling and waving tourists from Japan, Germany, or the continental United States, the availability and presumed transparency of the brown native body continues to anchor the decipherability of the experience. In the costumed role of the ‘‘soft primitive,’’ the ‘‘Polynesian’’ reenacts a culturally understood bodily performance that draws on anthropological discourses for decipherability. Other familiar tropes – such as the warrior or nubile maiden – are deployed by the PCC’s performers to ease the tourist into feeling that this is an authentic experience with authentic natives. Whether or not these are actually anthropologically correct roles is not the question. Rather, what matters is whether or not these are recognizable ways to frame the native body for tourist consumption. In this sense, anthropological authenticity as such ceases to be important. Reaching into discursive and visual archives about the native, both performer and audience participate in the continuing construction and legibility of the brown body as understandably and authentically ‘‘native.’’ The question of its availability for visual pleasure – how and why it got there –is altogether disappeared. As different iterations of the gendered native body, the female dancer and the generically ‘‘native’’ warrior are the two most recognizable icons of tropical fantasy at the PCC (Desmond, 1999). During the day, whether visiting individual ‘‘islands,’’ watching the canoe pageant or finishing the day off at the evening show, the rapidly swiveling hips of the Tahitian dancer resonate most with tourists as the anticipated performance of native womanhood. More attention-getting than the slower hula, the Tahitian dance, with its accompaniment of a driving drumbeat, feels like what the natives should be doing. Occupying a tenuous line between the eroticized object (as the tourists would have it) and the PCC’s more conservative and conservationist mien, the Tahitian dancer is the physical manifestation of heterosexual tropical fantasies about the natural and sensual native woman. However, the native as ‘‘warrior,’’ whether performing as a corps of young, bare-chested men just on this side of savagery, or as ‘‘island’’ elders, hint at the kinds of dangers that so titillated Westerners through travelogues and ethnographies. Safely converted for tourist consumption, these male warrior bodies nonetheless perpetuate the continuing martial corporeality of natives through various staged performances. In particular, the most popular and best-attended ‘‘island’’ of Samoa features a tattooed chief enacting various native Samoan ‘‘rituals.’’ These two performing bodies in particular capture the kinds of ethnographic moments of the authentic native for the audience,

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anticipating, reinforcing and re-legitimating a familiar anthropological vocabulary.8

Tahiti as Woman The ‘‘island’’ of Tahiti is usually the tourist’s first introduction to the Tahitian dancer, although he may have encountered her image in brochures or ads before entering the large lodge that acts as the Tahitian meeting house. Here, visitors sit through a lecture given by an older native man or woman, who goes over the geography and history of the islands of French Polynesia, one of which is the Tahiti of Paul Gaugain’s imagination, and another which was interestingly enough, used as the background for Bali Hai in the film South Pacific. To make sense to the audience, the narrator references Tahiti’s history in the context of Westernization, beginning with ‘‘discovery,’’ its natural resources for trade in the colonial market, and its diplomatic relations with France. This abbreviated history of Tahiti’s history and culture is notable for the absent narrative of the Mormon Church, as well as its sudden punctuation by the highlight of the presentation: the Tahitian dancer. A trio of young, costumed women enter, followed by their male partners, who as vigorously as they might perform, do not rate the same kind of fascination that the female dancers elicit. This is a specifically gendered performance of sensual and fecund femininity, with percussive rhythms to accompany the blurred spectacle of the women’s hips in action. This performance functions as an appetizer, promising more elaboration after the tourist has done the work of visiting and being educated at other islands. The Tahitian dancer takes center stage at the two ‘‘round-up’’ performances as well: the canoe pageant and the evening show. At the canoe pageant, the audience sits around a man-made lagoon while a succession of barges representing the different islands of Polynesia play out the smooth narration addressed to the visitors. Opened by a canoe carrying ‘‘a lovely Polynesian maiden, who scatters blossoms on the water in remembrance of days gone by,’’ the pageant itself is a review or preview of visits to the PCC’s different islands, setting the stage for a kind of nebulous historical past in which authentic ethnic culture is located. The different ‘‘islands’’ are clad in bright colors signifying the ‘‘nature’’ of each set of peoples. It is Tahiti, with its dancers clad in yellow and orange, which captures the audience imagination and garners the most applause. When the Tahitians first enter, it is with the lead female dancer with her back to the audience, shaking her hips

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slowly at first, then speeding up to a hypnotic frenzy, working the audience to a vocal response. The lead dancer’s ‘‘spectacular corporeality’’ in this moment produces a legible native body for mass audience consumption: all the tourists have their eyes on her undulating hips, responding to the pure embodiment and performance of her gendered, native body. Even as she remains modestly clothed in a strapless form-fitting dress and a grass skirt that further focuses attention on her swiveling hips, the sheer physical demands of the dance emphasize her corporeality and the sensual, sexual aspect of the dance. The spotlight of the evening’s dance performances is once again the Tahitian dancer. Centered on the front of the stage, on a dais, the lead dancer is dressed in white, with an elaborate headdress, addressing the audience’s desire to focus on her performing body and those impossibly fast hips. Divorced from any kind of context about Tahiti, its history of colonialism and its location in contemporary global politics and culture, the Tahitian dancer is the tropical woman incarnate, gesturing to a physicality and sensuality that defines her legibility in ethnographic and touristic fantasies. Her presence in the lodge house, on the barge and onstage is as decontextualized and contrived as the amorphous notion of ‘‘Polynesia’’ that she especially embodies. As staged as this performance is, however, it retains that authority of the authentic due to the body doing the dance, and the audience’s willingness to accept it as such in the larger context of a Hawaiian holiday. This kind of display of the native body, after all, has its sedimented histories, and one more layer of performance only reinforces the logics of the racialized and gendered taxonomy of the Tahitian dancer within the touristic imagination. Yet situated as it is within the Polynesian Cultural Center, the Tahitian dancer’s excessive corporeality – and her extremely eroticized performance – presents trouble. The audience’s enthusiasm for the Tahitian dancer’s performance is based on the spectacle her body produces makes for an uncomfortable fit. Incompletely educated as they are in the complexities of Tahitian culture, and the role of dance in it (particularly as the education in the Tahitian ‘‘island’’ lodge does not discuss the sexual politics of the dance pre- and post-contact) the audience can only translate the dance through a Western framework that has thoroughly commodified sexuality. This overwhelming mistranslation presents a somewhat comical dilemma, as after all, this is a church-run operation. Some men react by pumping their fists or whistling at the dancer (as if at a strip club). Though these moments can also be read as approval for a performer’s virtuosity, none of the other dance performances rate the same reaction. Here the tensions between an

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automatic sexualization of this dance and this dancer and the Mormon Church’s modesty are most apparent. Clearly the Tahitian dancer is the draw for the evening show, and spotlighting her performance illustrates this. Clothing her in nontraditional dress is a break in the authentic narrative, an attempt to restrain the overt sexuality of the dance while exploiting it. In this way, the reduction of Tahiti to the blurred rise and fall of a young woman’s hips exposes the tensions between the anthropological snapshots of each island as the PCC frames them, and the complexities of even the most spectacular, visually friendly aspects of cultural practices that are being performed. Furthermore, when made integral to a capitalist exchange of aloha, such performances become rearticulated as sexual commodities, and acquire a different set of meanings in the process.

Samoa as Comic Warrior Likewise, the native as warrior is rearticulated and performed with gusto in the Samoan exhibit. Epitomizing the native male as warrior – a theme that runs throughout the other islands as well – bare-chested and tattooed Samoan men perform a racialized masculinity following the tropes of colonial anthropology. In the dance performances and chants that mostly younger men perform, warrior identities are accentuated, gesturing to notions of savagery and primitivism that are addressed mostly to the women in the audience. ‘‘Samoa,’’ however, features stage performance of an older Samoan chief, and plays to the older statesman ideal as well as the warrior image. This is warriordom made safer for tourist consumption. Over the two years that I periodically visited the PCC, the chief has changed identity. The original, Chief Avea, apparently left due to disagreements over remuneration. Nonetheless, the various substitutes have taken on the role of Samoan chief in his absence, pointing once again to the exchangeability of native bodies at venues like the PCC – particularly when those bodies play into familiar and recognizable roles. In Samoa, the audience is treated to a scripted comic monologue featuring a Samoan chief on stage. An earlier chief ’s authenticity is credentialed by the full body tattoo – the recording of when he receives the tattoo is on sale at the gift shop. Subsequent ‘‘chiefs’’ who do not have tattoos play up the comic aspect of the remarkably durable monologue. As at each island, tourist pedagogy begins with greeting words, ritually rehearsing a dialogue of contact. Dressed in traditional Samoan costume, the chief begins by teaching the seated audience the Samoan equivalent for aloha, which is

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‘‘talofa.’’ The audience repeats after him several times, at which point he makes fun of them for mangling it into something like ‘‘toyota.’’ Depending on the audience demographic, the chief alters his monologue to tap into tourist stereotypes and national identities. He draws attention to the diverse makeup of the audience, which is often a mixed international crowd, but ultimately, he highlights the way that they are all positioned as tourists because of their consumption of his brown body. They laugh. Behind me, on her cell phone a woman tells a friend at home: ‘‘You should have seen the Samoan guy who just walked out.’’ She then proceeds to describe his physique in glowing terms. Throughout his monologue, the chief makes his body available for various photo opportunities. At the end of the formal presentation and display, visitors are encouraged to come up and take pictures of the chief or with him, and many take advantage of this opportunity. At the end of the day, the chief repeats the pedagogy of his staged, visually consumable body by standing on a dais at the pre-show marketplace and having tourists take photos of or with him. Mostly women volunteer. Signifying native authenticity, his body framed in performance and photograph constructs an easy shorthand for an entire Samoan (or Polynesian) life world. However, this pedagogical terrain – one which produces intelligible Western and Orientalized bodies by way of colonial frameworks of difference – also entertains the possibility of its own breakdown. As both poststructuralist and postcolonial scholars have argued, processes of consolidating meanings about race, gender and other modes of difference are always under contestation. Within the circuits of tourism, particularly within the understood transactions of ethnic tourisms, neat and discrete categories like ‘‘native’’ and ‘‘tourist’’ are reinforced as much as they are destabilized. Though imperial logics of race and gender dominate in something like the display of an ‘‘authentic’’ Samoan village chief on a dais for photographic convenience, this overdetermined, sedimented framing of native bodies is skewed when a pair of older white women climb onto the platform, hugs the chief’s oiled bare chest, and smile for the photographer. Exchanging greetings with him, they have a moment of cultural contact that is not staged, and (perhaps) a recognition of the fact that this is a job, and not necessarily an entire identity. In the processes of ethnic tourism today, it is apparent that colonial cultures of meaning are always under contestation. It is thrown off-kilter by an overly enthusiastic male tourist who starts to cheer a Tahitian dancer as if he watching a strip tease, making other tourists uncomfortable about their own positionalities. Yet just as significantly, the theoretical subjects of

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ethnic tourism have also become its objects: it is not a one-sided documentation of ‘‘their’’ brown bodies and ‘‘their’’ ceremonial and everyday lives but also a constant interrogation of ‘‘our’’ privileged identities and lifestyles. These days, the native body is not staying in its place, even in a place like the PCC, and this, in turn, displaces the tourist’s identity. Today, tourists frame their own photographs of rituals and ceremonies and of everyday life. Then, as now, they are frustrated perhaps by the native’s refusal to play the native, by the always-already contested terrains of authenticity. In these spaces of playing native, room exists for a more active reconstitution of racial and gendered meanings. Exhibitions of native bodies in performances, photographs, and daily life also become opportunities for exhibitionism that exceed the bounds of colonial frameworks of race and gender. A new thing is produced in this touristic process. Playing with the ‘‘authentic’’ – with fixed binaries that position the tourist and other as opposites – means unpacking the potential of tourist pedagogy to mix things up. The Samoan performance, because of its popularity and high entertainment value, is also interesting for the moments of critique embedded in the running monologue. The chief’s performance is hysterically funny and ironic, poking fun at the audience for their particular desires to see his native body, hear his native songs, and watch him perform tasks like starting a fire or opening a coconut on stage. The chief asks the audience if we have any requests – songs for him to sing. The audience is quiet, and he urges them on: ‘‘you already paid for us,’’ he jokes. He then breaks into a fast, farcical medley of ‘‘On the Road Again’’ and ‘‘Jingle Bells.’’ He segues into an opportunity to sell refreshments to the audience: five dollars for a two of scoops of watermelon ice-cream, packaged in a hollowed out pineapple bottom for that tropical effect. As BYU students vend the ice cream, he explains jokingly how they, as well as his fellow performers ‘‘all came here to go to school.’’ Pause. ‘‘We didn’t know about this,’’ he states, indicating the kind of work-study performance that the Polynesian looking students were recruited into. But, he continues, sighing dramatically, Samoans are the ‘‘happy people of Polynesia,’’ and his play-labor continues, albeit with an exaggerated martyrlike expression. Demonstrating how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together he explains how important fire is to traditional Samoan culture: ‘‘rainy days we don’t eat, then we go to McDonalds.’’ His wry tone elicits laughter from the audience. He explains how men have to do all the work in Samoa: ‘‘one day I go to America. They make us do the same thing.’’ Later on, he has a fellow performer climb a coconut tree while the audience claps

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in encouragement. He asks them if they want to see him jump to the next tree, and they yell ‘‘yes!’’ This call and response repeats, but the climber sheepishly states that it is not a good day for jumping trees. The audience realizes they have been had by their own desires to see natives perform a visual spectacle of their culture. The pointed but humorous monologue, however is undercut by the repetition of how friendly the natives are in Samoa, and how the tourists visiting ‘‘Polynesia’’ today are doing these natives a favor by providing them jobs so they can go to school. Thus, another layer of pedagogy underscores the idea of display: the altruism of the mission through tourism and education is highlighted, casting the PCC as the ultimate compassionate conservationist.

POSTCARDS Identifying as cultural moderns, tourists are prepared for the moment of contact by sedimented narratives about the other (and the self). The spaces of ethnic tourism are constructed by historically recognizable colonial logics that rely on familiar binaries. Different temporalities and spatialities are invoked by the practices and sites of cultural tourism for the pleasure of the tourist and as a rationale for the contributions of a tourism industry. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett notes that ‘‘Even as historic re-creations in our own day model themselves on the tourist experience, tourism itself recodes space as time. Travelers are routinely promised idyllic escapes from their harried lives to destinations where time ‘stands still’ or the past lives on, untouched by modernity’’ (1998, p. 194). At the same time, this conceit of time-travel underpins the globalization of a tourism industry that is exploitative and whose profits center mostly within First World circuits of capital. Tourism becomes that necessary step on the ladder of developmentalism. In this ostensibly benign encounter, framed by modernizing narratives of economic uplift on the one hand, and stories of cross-cultural pluralism on the other, anthropological itineraries shed their imperial mantles in favor of touristic logics of pedagogy and its economies of desire. Ostensibly, in these playgrounds untouched by the corruption of modernity, mankind in all its plurality can get along. This narrative of fraternity-in-difference underpins an industry built on a long history of imperial display of the other as racial and sexual freak, primitive savage, and biological aberration alongside the biological, cultural and technological superiority of Western civilization. At the Polynesian Cultural Center,

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tourists are invited to take pictures with the dancers and performers. These tamed natives are just different enough to titillate: elaborately costumed, placing lei around visitors’ necks, enjoining them to join them in the frame of the camera with ‘‘cousins’’ taking the photograph, they invite you to be part of this imagined family, reinscribing the host-guest fantasy sold by the Hawaiian tourist industry. In search of difference, tourists today venture to relive the innocence of the moment of contact with primitive, uncivilized cultures (elsewhere) while at the same time ignoring the histories of colonial inequities and violence that allowed (and continues to allow) them this privilege. In the PCC’s circuits of production and consumption, certain ideas about native authenticity become more intelligible than others and become emblematic of the ways in which tourism (and colonialism) is interpreted as a mutually beneficial project. The majority of their employees are Pacific Islander working students at the neighboring Brigham Young University, who are supplemented by actual Polynesian chiefs and natives who lend an added air of authenticity to the islands. While most of the students who attend BYU have little to no knowledge of the kind of cultural performance that the PCC claims are authentic (and almost intrinsic) to their natures, they too, are recruited as visible and visual markers of cultural authenticity. In many cases, they are portrayed as beneficiaries of the PCC’s project as well: the rightful recipients and apprentices of long-gone or evolved cultural practices that they themselves were unaware of due to changes wrought by modernity. The pedagogy of authenticity, in this sense, becomes not only a process of education about so-called native bodies and native cultures, but about their appropriate place within a continuum of development and gratitude. Under the watchful aegis of Mormon missionhood, combined savvily with an eye to tourist desires and consumption, endangered Pacific Islander cultures are not only preserved, but made profitable. In 2009, with the fiftieth anniversary of Hawai’i’s statehood, the continuing connections between anthropological modes of knowledge and tourist fantasies reiterate the kinds of cultural logics that helped make statehood possible in the first place. Denying Native Hawaiians political and economic sovereignty, 1959 marked yet another repetition of earlier histories. Today, the PCC’s picture of the happy, contained and safe native – the only kind of native imaginable in tourist fantasy (if not ethnographic reality) – merges effectively with the present-day narrative of the state as a territory benevolently annexed by a generous colonizer, where multicultural paradise in all its glory, can be toured by all. Once again secured the massive machinery of the U.S. military, such narratives of compassionate colonialism

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and beneficial developmentalism serve the empire more eloquently and successfully, particularly when accompanied by a smile.

NOTES 1. I use parentheses around the ‘‘post’’ in postcolonial to signify the illegal takeover of the sovereign nation of Hawai’i by the provisional government of Sanford Dole in 1893. The annexation of Hawai’i by the United States subsequent to this illegal takeover continues to be contested by Native Hawaiian sovereignty movements. 2. Italics in the original. 3. See for instance the nuanced analyses of Nicholas Thomas in Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government, where he takes a historicized ethnographic approach to dismantling notions of colonialism as a monolithic project. 4. Polynesian Cultural Center website: http://www.polynesia.com/early-history. html (accessed on December 14, 2008.) 5. Polynesian Cultural Center website: http://www.polynesia.com/polynesianpanorama.html (accessed on December 14, 2008). 6. Polynesian Cultural center website: http://www.polynesia.com/polynesianpanorama.html (accessed on December 14, 2008). 7. For work primarily concerned about the ‘‘authenticity’’ of the PCC, see, for instance, Brameid, T. & Matsuyama, M. (1977). Tourism as cultural learning: Two controversial cases in educational anthropology. Washington, DC: University Press of America; Stanton, M. (1974). The Polynesian Cultural Center: Presenting Polynesia to the World or the World to Polynesia. In: B. Finney & K. A. Watson (Eds), A new kind of sugar: Tourism in the Pacific (pp.229–232). Honolulu, Hawai‘i: East-West Center; Robinson, A. M. (1991). The Polynesian Cultural Center: A study of authenticity. M.A. thesis, California State University, Chico. 8. Following the 2008 passing of California’s Proposition 8 which essentially bans gay marriage, the Mormon Church’s role in funding and supporting this law was highlighted and targeted by various activist groups. Significantly, the PCC’s performances of various Pacific Islander cultures do not acknowledge the alternate gender and sexual identities of the indigenous peoples it has on display, which have culturally significant roles.

REFERENCES Buck, E. (1993). Paradise remade: The politics of culture and history in Hawai‘i. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Clifford, J. (1997). Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cummings, D. W. (1964). Polynesia in Day! Background and detailed description illustrated in full color of the Polynesian Cultural Center. Laie, Hawai‘i: Pacific Board of Education of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

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Desmond, J. (1999). Staging tourism: Bodies on display from Waikiki to sea world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goss, J. (1993). Placing the market and marketing the place: Tourist advertising of the Hawai‘ian islands, 1972–1992. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 11, 663–688. Hinsley, C. (1991). The world as marketplace: Commodification of the exotic at the world’s Columbian exposition, Chicago, 1893. In: I. Karp & S. D. Lavine (Eds), Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display (pp. 344–365). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kent, N. (1993). Islands under the influence. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998). Destination culture: Tourism, museums and heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. Okamura, J. Y. (1998). The illusion of paradise: Privileging multiculturalism in Hawai‘i. In: D. C. Gladney (Ed.), Making majorities: Constituting the nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States (pp. 264–340). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Pease, D. E. (1993). New perspectives on U.S. culture and imperialism. In: A. Kapland & D. E. Pease (Eds), Cultures of United States imperialism (pp. 22–40). Durham: Duke University Press. Pels, P., & Salemink, O. (Eds). (1999). Colonial subjects: Essays on the practical history of anthropology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press. Ross, A. (1994). The Chicago gangster theory of life: Nature’s debt to society. London: Verso Press. Rydell, R. (1987). All the world’s a fair: Visions of empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1917 (Reprint edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Silva, N. (2004). Aloha betrayed: Native Hawaiian resistance to American colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stanton, M. (1989). The polynesian cultural center: A multi-ethnic model of seven pacific cultures. In: V. L. Smith (Ed.), Hosts and guests: The anthropology of tourism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Torgovnik, M. (1990). Gone primitive: Savage intellects, modern lives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Trask, H-K. (1999). From a native daughter: Colonialism and sovereignty in Hawaii (Reprint edition). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Webb, T. (1994). Highly structured tourist art: Form and meaning of the polynesian cultural center. The Contemporary Pacific, 6(1, Spring), 59–85. White, G. M., & Tengan, T. K. (2001). Disappearing worlds: Anthropology and cultural studies in Hawai’i and the pacific. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(2, Fall), 381–416. Williamson, J. (1986). Woman is an island: Femininity and colonization. In: T. Modleski (Ed.), Studies in entertainment (pp. 111–118). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wilson, R. (2000). Reimagining the American pacific: From south pacific to bamboo ridge and beyond. Durham: Duke University Press. Yaguchi, Y., & Yoshihara, M. (2002). Evolutions of ‘paradise’: Japanese tourist discourse about Hawai’i. American Studies, 45(3), 81–106.

CINCO DE MAYO, INC.: REINTERPRETING LATINO CULTURE INTO A COMMERCIAL HOLIDAY Jose´ M. Alamillo ABSTRACT Cinco de Mayo celebrations have become more popular in the United States than in Mexico. In the past few decades, this historic day has changed from a regional celebration of Mexican American culture into nationwide Latino/a holiday hijacked by the alcohol industry and other commercial interests. This chapter closely examines the varied ways in which Cinco de Mayo has been represented by U.S. advertisers, marketers, and restaurant owners. Using content analysis of Cinco de Mayo advertisements in magazines, billboards, liquor ads, and store displays from 2000 to 2006, five mediated representations emerged: Mexico’s Fourth of July, Mexican St. Patrick’s Day, Drinko de Mayo, Sexism in a Bottle, and Mexican Otherness. These representations are anchored in a new racism ideology that emphasizes cultural difference, individualism, liberalism, and colorblindness, which reinforce existing racial inequalities. The implications of the alcohol industry’s Cinco de Mayo advertisements is the increased targeting of Latino/a youth from working-class communities with high rates of alcohol-related violent deaths and illnesses. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 217–238 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033015

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Several weeks before May 5, 1994, a Michigan radio station offered listeners their ‘‘own personal Mexican’’ as the winning prize for a Cinco de Mayo– inspired contest. The radio dick jockey announced that ‘‘Members of the station and their families are not eligible to own Mexicans—bathing and delousing of Mexicans is a winner’s responsibility. The station assumes no responsibility for infections diseases carried by Mexicans’’ (Bender, 2005). The view of dirty Mexican bodies carrying infectious diseases and polluting the American way of life seeks to justify their chief function as ‘‘cheap’’ exploitable labor that can be disposed at will. Cinco de Mayo presents a marketing opportunity for radio stations to mock Mexicans for profit (Calafell, 2006). Packaged commodified images and narratives of Cinco de Mayo are deployed and reinterpreted year after year by corporations and advertisers to sell food and beverage products. To do this effectively, marketers appropriate, refigure, and resell images of Mexican history, tradition, culture, and language to establish closer market relationships between a particular product brand and consumers. At the beginning of the new millennium, there is no question that Cinco de Mayo has entered American mainstream. While many view this trend as a sign of progress, whereby Latino/a culture is becoming visible and reaching national recognition, others are more suspicious about its commercialization. The rising immigration rates and high birth-rates among Latino/as have contributed to the holiday’s increased popularity. These demographic changes have led to the Latinization of Cinco de Mayo in selected cities, transforming the holiday from its exclusive Mexican-American focus to a festive day to celebrate pan-Latino pride and culture (Sommers, 1991). Cinco de Mayo celebrations can now be found in rather unexpected places in the East Coast, the South, Hawaii, and Alaska. During springtime, over 500 cities across the United States organize Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The largest of these draw high attendance and generate corporate sponsorship including Los Angeles’ Fiesta Broadway, Chicago South side’s Cinco de Mayo parade, St. Paul’s Cinco de Mayo in District del Sol, Denver’s Cinco de Mayo: Celebrate Culture Festival, and Portland’s Cinco de Mayo Fiesta. The adoption of a Cinco de Mayo first-class stamp in 1998 and the 2001 celebration in the White House lawn were the latest examples of its growing recognition by the federal government. One geographer has even claimed that Cinco de Mayo has become more popular than St. Patrick’s Day (Carlson, 1998, p. 13). Less understood is the role of big business in contributing to the holiday’s popularity. How have marketers and advertisers used Latino/a culture to sell products? Has increased Latino/a consumer power contributed to increased attention of Latino/a cultural traditions? In Once upon a Quincean˜era,

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Julia Alvarez (2007, p. 84) offers a biting critique of the commercialization of a Latina tradition that marks a young girl’s entry into womanhood that reveals ‘‘how our traditions are remade in the USA, repackaged and sold back to us as authentic at a higher price’’. In Latinos Inc., Arlene Da´vila (2001) shows how both Latino/a and non-Latino/a advertising agencies perpetuate stereotypical images of Latino/as, and construct a Latinidad that is commercially safe for consumption without challenging social inequities that continues to impact the Latino/a community. Some of these stereotypes include Latino/as as exotic, family-oriented, hot and spicy food lovers, cultural traditionalist and hyper-nationalistic, being present-oriented and overly emotional, prone to listen to radio, watch television, but not reading, and fiercely loyal to name brands. These stereotypes are continually being reconfigured by marketing agencies to explain Latino/a consumer behavior and to tap into their buying power. The amount of goods purchased by U.S. Latino/as increased from 1986 to 1996 reaching over $223 billion. According to a 2003 report by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, Latino/a buying power is expected to increase from 5.2% in 1990 to 9.6% in 2008. Another report estimated that Latino/as currently spend $400 billion annually in the United States (Douglas, 1996). The commercialization of Cinco de Mayo should force one to pay attention to the gradual colonization of young Latino/a bodies by market forces. The alcohol and beer industry have been especially aggressive in spending millions in advertising to Latino/a youth. According to a report by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, Hispanic youth ages 12–20 saw and heard 20% more alcohol advertising in English-only magazines and on English and Spanish radio and television during 2003 and 2004 than young people in their age group (Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth, 2005). During the same years, alcohol companies spent more than 3.5 million in advertising in both English and Spanish language media. As the director of Hispanic Marketing for Molson Coors Brewing Company put it, ‘‘If you’re going to succeed in the beer business, you have to succeed in the Hispanic market’’ (Edwards, 2005, p.2). Corporate America’s salivation for a growing Latino/a consumer base will continue to transform Cinco de Mayo into a selling opportunity while ignoring the high school drop-out rates and prison incarceration numbers among young Latino/as. This chapter examines the multiple ways in which Cinco de Mayo is reinterpreted into a commodified holiday by advertisers, marketers, and restaurant owners. First, I will trace the origins and the development of the Hispanic market and show how during the 1980s the beer and alcohol industry appropriated Cinco de Mayo to gain a foothold into the lucrative

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Latino/a consumer base. Second, l will analyze the mediated representations of Cinco de Mayo in billboards, print media articles, television commercials, and restaurant menus. These mediated representations have real social consequences for Latino/a community plagued with higher alcohol abuse rates, a negative self-image among youth, destructive forms of gender and familial relations, and other alcohol-related community problems. From a content analysis of advertisements in magazines, billboards, liquor ads, and store displays from 2000 to 2006, five dominant representations emerged. These include (1) A historical misreading of the holiday as ‘‘Mexico’s Fourth of July,’’ (2) The holiday’s association with drinking also known as a ‘‘Mexican St. Patrick’s Day,’’ (3) The beer and alcohol industry has attempted to reinterpret the holiday into ‘‘Drinko de Mayo’’ by using appeals to nationalist symbols and cultural authenticity, (4) Marketers use sexual appeal and gendered representations of hyper-masculine Mexican males and ‘‘hot’’ ‘‘spicy’’ oversexed Latina women in their Cinco de Mayo ads, and (5) The holiday becomes an occasion for non-Latino/as to consumer ‘‘Mexican Otherness’’ inside bars and restaurants. Finally, I will examine the connections between the commodification of Cinco de Mayo and rise of the new racism in the United States. Ultimately, I will argue that the commodification of Cinco de Mayo resembles a form of ‘‘new racism’’ that relies upon racialized and gendered representations of ‘‘Mexicanness’’ that transforms a cultural tradition into a selling opportunity and distorts the historical and cultural significance of Cinco de Mayo. This chapter foregrounds the ways in which racialized and gendered representations about Cinco de Mayo are produced and circulated in U.S. advertisements and restaurants. These ‘‘mediated representations’’ are powerful rhetorical forces that offer a positive, negative, or neutral interpretation with underlying racial assumptions and real socio-political consequences (Ono & Sloop, 2002). The analysis is drawn from a variety of alcohol and beer advertisements located inside mainstream magazines, grocery stores, billboards, liquor stores, and nightclubs and restaurants, and event posters. Using a discourse analysis (textual and visual), I seek to show the ways in which racial and gender ideology operates in contemporary understandings of Cinco de Mayo and Latino/a culture in the United States.

MARKETING CINCO DE MAYO The emergence of the ‘‘Hispanic Market’’ during the 1980s, also known by advertisers as the ‘‘Decade of the Hispanic,’’ contributed to the widespread

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popularity of ethnic festivals. Cinco de Mayo resembled New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade and other festivals that increased in popularity as they attracted more sponsors and direct marketing advertising (Da´vila, 2001). For example, USA Today reported that ‘‘Until 10 years ago, Cinco de Mayo was largely ignored by the non-Latin community. Then, perhaps because there were few other spring marketing opportunities or because they just realized what an untapped market Hispanics were, several large beer and soft-drink companies began sponsoring local events’’ (Stone, 1988, p. 1B). Since the 1920s, U.S. advertisers and retailers have appealed to the consumer tastes of Mexican immigrants and their children by tapping into their cultural traditions, Spanish language, and nationalist ideologies to sell products (Sanchez, 1994; Halter, 2000). By the mid-1970s, national magazines were predicting a sharp increase in the Latino/a population, and after the release of the 1980 census, companies were pleasantly surprised by the largely youthful Latino/a population (21–34 ages) and thus began bolstering advertising budgets and opening marketing departments to harness this growing Latino/a purchasing power. The construction of the ‘‘Hispanic market’’ emerged with the collapsing of U.S. residents of Latin American descent, originating from national, ethnic, class, and racial backgrounds into the homogenizing category of ‘‘Hispanic’’ (Da´vila, 2001). To distinguish Hispanics from general American consumers, advertisers and marketing officials relied on a host of racial stereotypes to explain consumer behavior and used the Spanish language as the primary identity marker (Astroff, 1989; Pen˜aloza, 1994; Yankelovich & White, 1981). During the early 1980s, Anheuser-Busch and Miller Company created their own Hispanic marketing departments and began to sponsor Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Apart from print and television advertising, Miller experimented with event marketing that included sponsoring concerts, art shows, and cultural festivals (McDowell, 1981). In 1989, Anheuser-Busch and Miller sponsored one of the largest Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Lincoln Park and Olvera Street in Los Angeles. However, the three-day celebration reportedly ended early when drunken individuals became rowdy, engaged in street brawls, and fired shots at a passing car (Maxwell & Jacobson, 1989). By the end of the night, six people were injured and one person killed. A Latino activist who attended the event observed, ‘‘They’re [Companies] pushing a legalized drug [beer] upon our community. You’re asking for trouble’’ (Maxwell & Jacobson, 1989, p. 49). Despite the violence that resulted from heavy drinking at Cinco de Mayo festivals, Anheuser-Busch and Miller continued to woo Hispanic consumers. In 1996, Hispanic buying power convinced the beer and alcohol industry to spend over 26.3 million in advertising (Zate, 1996). Two years later, the top

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three domestic brewers (Amheuser-Busch, Coors, and Miller) spent a combined total of 37.65 million in Hispanic advertising. More recently, Miller Brewing Company secured a three-year $100 million contract with Univision Communications, the largest Spanish language broadcaster in the United States (Elliott, 2004). U.S. alcohol companies are not the sole promoters Cinco de Mayo. Corona beer, which is produced in Mexico by Modelo Group, spent over 5 million in advertising during the two-week promotional window in 2003 and claimed to sell over 100 million bottles (Kane, 2003). The Spanish language media also plays a role in commercializing Cinco de Mayo. In fact, beer and alcohol advertising in the Spanish language media is a key strategy used to reach bilingual and Spanish dominant consumers (Perez, 2004). In the 1980s, Adolph Coors Company declared the ‘‘decade of the Hispanic’’ and invested over 60 million in Hispanic advertising, promotion, and community relations in an attempt to improve its negative reputation in the Hispanic community. Since 1966, the Coors Brewing Company and its products have been a target of protests and boycotts by Chicano organizations in Colorado for their discriminatory hiring practices, opposition to affirmative action and bilingual education, and support for ‘‘English Only’’ initiatives (Bellant, 1991). Fear of losing ground to this lucrative Hispanic Market, Coors made an unprecedented move by signing the ‘‘Hispanic Agreement’’ in 1984 with a coalition of Hispanic organizations to improve hiring and promotion of Hispanic employees, enlisting Hispanic-owned suppliers and providing for scholarship awards and donations for Hispanic groups. Coors sponsored Hispanic events to sample its product, like the 1986 ‘‘Discovery of America Day’’ in Miami, Florida, that attracted over 20,000 people to see the re-enactment of Christopher Columbus and his crew disembark from the Santa Maria ship. Although Coors has attempted to correct its negative image by donating money to Hispanic foundations and sponsoring events, strong opposition to the company continues. During the 2003 Cinco de Mayo celebration in Denver, Colorado, a group of Chicano students distributed flyers urging festival goers to boycott Coors for its support of stricter immigration measures. To this day, Coors products only reach 4% of the Hispanic market, far below Corona beer, which commands 63% of the total beer market (Aguilera & Espinoza, 2003).

CONSUMING CINCO DE MAYO Stereotypical images of Latinos and Latinas in U.S. television, radio, and print media have a longstanding history. These images range from the

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Mexican bandit, Latin lover, sexy sen˜orita, and poor illiterate peon, to the contemporary ‘‘illegal alien’’ and urban gangster (Rodriguez, 1997; Noriega, 1992). Advertising campaigns have been some of the worst perpetuators of negative Latino and Latina representations (Martinez, 1994). One of the most notorious was the ‘‘Frito Bandito’’ created in 1967 by the advertising firm Foote, Cone, and Belding for the Frito-Lay’s Corporation. This television and magazine advertising campaign featured a ‘‘sneaky’’ Mexican thief who stole corn ships at gun point (Smith, 1976). Because of mounting pressure from Mexican American civil rights groups, Frito Lay reluctantly dropped its ‘‘bandito’’ campaign in 1971, even though bandito-like portrayals continued in cigarette, deodorant, and watch advertisements. Advertisers also deployed benevolent stereotypes of the ‘‘traditional’’ Hispanic family. Brand loyalty, compulsiveness, aural and visual shopping, and machismo and self-sacrificing mothers were dominant tropes mobilized to explain Latino/a consumer behavior (Nuiry, 1996). Ironically, the same stereotypes previously cited as the main reasons for the lack of assimilation among Hispanic families became redefined as ‘‘Spanish gold’’ (Astroff, 1989). Resistance to negative representations of Latinos and Latinas also have a long history ranging from organized boycotts, letter writing, protests at movie theatres, and ‘‘brownout’’ campaigns (Limon, 1974; Noriega, 2000). Today, in part, because of increased Hispanic purchasing power and pressure from watchdog media groups, corporate America is more careful not to offend Latino and Latina consumers with overtly racist and sexist images. Instead, they use coded messages that include a misreading of the holiday’s historical significance, use of indirect subtle racialized and gendered images, coded race-neutral language, and emphasis on cultural differences or cultural ‘‘Otherness.’’ These discursive frames resemble the ‘‘new racism’’ that emerged in the post-civil rights era replacing the ‘‘old’’ Jim Crow racism that relied on overt expressions of racial exclusion and hostility. The main features of ‘‘new racism’’, according to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2001), includes the covert nature of racial discourse, avoidance of racial terminology or race neutrality, and invisibility of racial structure that reproduces racial inequality or ‘‘color blindness.’’ As part of the racialized social system, the mass media has played an important role in reinforcing racial, gender, and class inequalities. Advertisements are not only a means to sell commercial products but communicated notions of nationalism, gender, and cultural difference (Marchand, 1985; Barthel, 1988; O’Barr, 1994). In her analysis of British soap advertisements, Anne McClintock (1995) shows how ‘‘commodity racism’’ and ‘‘commodity sexism’’ were interwoven constructing a ‘‘racialized domesticity’’ in which soap product advertisements

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promised to wash away dirt and black skin color while rendering women’s unpaid labor invisible. Similarly, Cinco de Mayo advertisements also rely on racialized and gendered images to sell food and beverage products, which encourages excessive consumerism and celebration without truly understanding the day’s historical significance. In analyzing Cinco de Mayo advertisements between 2000 and 2006, I have identified five main representations. These include (1) ‘‘Mexico’s Fourth of July,’’ (2) ‘‘Mexican St. Patrick’s Day,’’ (3) ‘‘Drinko de Mayo,’’ (4) Sexism in a Bottle, and (5) ‘‘Mexican Otherness.’’ Mexico’s Fourth of July On May 4, 2005, President George W. Bush welcomed distinguished Hispanic leaders to the White House Rose Garden to celebrate Cinco de Mayo then joked that ‘‘My only problem this year is I scheduled the dinner on cuatro de Mayo. Next year I’m going to have to work on my math.’’ He added, ‘‘I always look forward to Cinco de Mayo especially because it gives me a chance to practice my Spanish’’ (Zoretich, 2005, p. A4). The superficial rendering of the holiday is not limited to the President of the United States, but is commonplace among ordinary Americans. Most Americans consider Cinco de Mayo as Mexico’s independence from Spain, which is commemorated on the 16 September, rather than remembering the poorly outfitted Indian peasants that defeated the well-armed French army in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. ‘‘Is it Mexico’s Fourth of July?’’ asked one customer eating at a Mexican restaurant and added ‘‘I’m not sure, but I celebrate it with a whole lot of food and lots of beer’’ (De la Cruz, 2005, p. A3). When a Texas reporter moved to Denver, Colorado, to start a Spanish language newspaper, he was surprised to hear a television station proclaim Cinco de Mayo as Mexico’s Independence Day (Quintero, 2005). The misreading of the day’s significance in Mexican history represents a historical amnesia with Latin American history in general, but because an educational component is missing in its corporate advertisement and sponsorship, it is not surprising that celebrants have no idea about its historical importance. The historical confusion over Cinco de Mayo also resembles the historical amnesia of St. Patrick’s Day. Mexican St. Patrick’s Day Cinco de Mayo’s emergence as a popular drinking holiday is often compared with St. Patrick’s Day. As one Denver partygoer put it, ‘‘Many

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people don’t know why you wear green or drink beer on that day, but who cares, as long as you get to get out of work early to go and drink? y Cinco de Mayo is great excuse to get out and party’’ (Quintero, 2005, p. A32). St. Patrick’s Day’s honors St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, who converted many pagans to Christianity and became Ireland’s second bishop until his death on March 17, 461 (Cronin & Adair, 2002). The holiday was first introduced in the United States on March 17, 1766, by Irish immigrants who then transformed the holiday into their own, whether using it to support Ireland’s independence from Britain, demonstrate against anti-Irish hostility in the United States, or celebrate Irish American contributions to America (Marston, 1989). Today, with Irish Americans achieving political and economic success, the holiday is frequently used as a reason to ‘‘Go Green’’ by finding the nearest Irish pub and drink Guinness beer. Considered the most ‘‘authentic’’ Irish beer, Guinness recently embarked in a petition campaign to make St. Patrick’s Day an official American holiday. Guinness’ clever marketing ploy has made the beer synonymous with Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day (Archer & Lee, 2004). In many ways, Cinco de Mayo has followed the same path as St. Patrick’s Day in becoming a drinking holiday. In attempt to merge both holidays, Corona Beer premiered a television commercial in 2002 called ‘‘Cinco de Mayo in Ireland.’’ The commercial opens with an Irish man dressed in a long black coat and black hat walking toward a small town in rural Ireland while traditional Irish music plays in the background. The narration follows, ‘‘And if you arrive on that most special day in Ireland you will find the town celebrating their favorite holiday in traditional fashion.’’ Then as the visitor opens the pub door, the music abruptly switches to mariachi music and finds a ‘‘Cinco de Mayo’’ celebration underway as the Irish bartender, wearing a large sombrero and grabbing four Corona beers, shouts his name ‘‘Hiya Sean, Happy Cinco de Mayo.’’ The visitor immediately takes off his hat and coat to reveal his bright party shirt and grabs a Corona beer. At the end, we see two Corona beers standing in front of a blurred image of a light-skinned Irish woman. The message behind this television commercial is that anyone, including Irish men in Ireland’s pubs, can find a ‘‘wild’’ Cinco de Mayo party wherever Corona beer is sold and once you find a fiesta you can become a ‘‘Mexican’’ for that night. Becoming ‘‘Mexican’’ for Irish Americans means something altogether different when compared to Mexican Americans. As Mary Waters (1990) has suggested, ‘‘white ethnics’’ can choose aspects of their European culture and language, whereas people of color did not have the same options in a racialized U.S. social system that positions Latino/as as ‘‘perpetual foreigners’’ (Rocco, 2004; Bonilla-Silva, 2004).

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Drinko de Mayo In recent years, newspaper reports have dubbed Cinco de Mayo as ‘‘Drinko de Mayo’’ to draw attention to its close relationship with the beer and alcohol industry and to express discontent with the commercialization of the holiday. Since the 1980s, the beer and alcohol industry has used Cinco de Mayo to promote sales of their products by spending millions in both English and Spanish language advertising and sponsoring celebrations (Alamillo, 2004). Beer advertisers use a ‘‘market segmentation’’ strategy that requires research on a Latino/a population to determine which messages and images resonate with their cultural ‘‘Otherness.’’ When U.S. racial minority groups or immigrants are turned into a commodity form, it is their exoticism, ‘‘authenticity,’’ and ‘‘Otherness,’’ which are emphasized in a celebratory and non-threatening way that encourages consumption while at the same time blurring power relations (O’Barr, 1994). The insertion of Spanish terms in advertising slogans such as ‘‘Drinko de Mayo’’ or ‘‘Drinko for Cinco’’ are a form of covert racial discourse or what Jane Hill (1993) termed ‘‘Mock Spanish.’’ Anglo American users of ‘‘Mock Spanish’’ may claim their intent is for innocuous or humorous reasons, but when users have ‘‘access to very negative racializing representations of Chicanos and Latino/as as stupid, politically corrupt, sexually loose, lazy, dirty, and disorderly,’’ then it accomplishes the ‘‘elevation of whiteness’’ by indexing Latino/as indirectly and therefore ‘‘in need of linguistic control’’ (p. 145). Alcohol and beer companies have been very effective in appropriating and transforming Latino/a cultural forms, religious symbols, and Spanish language into commodified cultural signs that perpetuate negative stereotypes about the Mexican community and Mexican history and culture. Take for example Corona Extra Beer’s ‘‘Drinko for Cinco’’ promotional campaign (Courch, 2004). This campaign includes network and cable television commercial, radio spots, billboards, and store displays in key market locations: Los Angeles, San Antonio, Miami, Chicago, and New York. One of these store displays is located in the front entrances of major supermarkets and features an eight-foot high stack of Corona 12-packs surrounded by a colorful cabana with colorful slogan: ‘‘The Drinko de Mayo’’ (Strumpf, 2006). One of the promotional posters displays a map of Mexico with a parrot on the tip of Yucatan adorned with a Mexican sombrero, sunglasses, and a multi-colored serape. The parrot holds a bottle of Corona Extra and Corona Light in each claw. The poster’s slogan is ‘‘Miles Away from Ordinary.’’ Through this store display and poster, Corona Beer is inviting consumers to leave their ‘‘ordinary lives’’ behind and

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drink Corona and in the process consume Mexican ‘‘Otherness’’ in the safety of their homes while imagining being ‘‘miles away.’’ Attempts to reproduce a Cinco de Mayo ‘‘fiesta’’ inside grocery stores is another example of how beer companies have commodified the Mexican fiesta for profit. For example, one Cinco de Mayo store promotion featured a ‘‘Mexican Hut’’ full of Mexican beer brands inside. Customers were encouraged to enter a hacienda-type hut and to purchase any of the three Mexican beer brands: Carta Blanca, Sol, Tecate, and Dos Equis. ‘‘It’s very festive and has all the typical Mexican fiesta themes and all the branding,’’ commented the Director of Mexican Brands for Labatt USA (Courch, 2004, p. 1). Expropriating elements of Mexican culture for profit according to a spokesperson from San Antonio–based Gambrinus Co., the largest U.S. importer of Corona beer, is ‘‘really a cornerstone of our annual marketing plan’’ (Pritchard, 2001). The use of Mexican nationalist symbols is another common strategy by beer companies. Budweiser appropriated a popular Mexican saying, ‘‘Como Mexico no hay dos’’ (There’s only one Mexico) and added ‘‘Como Budweiser tampoco’’ (Budweiser, too) (Strumpf, 2006). One liquor store ad went so far as to claim that Tecate beer was ‘‘Pura Vitamina Mexicana’’ (pure Mexican vitamin), suggesting that an essential part of Mexican identity, culture, and nutrition is consuming Tecate beer (Courch, 2004). Coors Light’s slogan ‘‘Sabemos como celebrar’’ (We know how to celebrate) claims that Mexican people are culturally predisposed to party. Additionally, Mexican religious symbols have appeared in beer and alcohol ads. Another example is a Jose Cuervo tequila ad featuring a blender making margaritas on top of a Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, a sacred pre-Columbian symbol that connects this tequila to an ‘‘authentic’’ indigenous Mexico (Alaniz & Wilkes, 1995). For its 2003 Cinco de Mayo campaign, Jose Cuervo tequila launched its ‘‘CuervoNation’’ program that offers loyal drinkers an opportunity to win a trip to their eight-acre ‘‘outpost’’ in a Caribbean Island (Sherer, 2003). Even though tequila originated in western Mexico, contest winners will travel to ‘‘CuervoNation outposts’’ in the Caribbean island. Another Jose Cuervo tequila ad appealed to the cultural memory of Mexican American consumers by using the tagline ‘‘Si Se Puede’’ (made famous by the labor leader Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement) alongside ‘‘Si Se Party, Si Se Cuervo’’ (Sherer, 2003). Tequila, according to Gayta´n (2008b), continues to play a important role in shaping Mexican nationalism and masculinity. These ads appealed to ‘‘authentic’’ Mexican cultural icons ranging from pre-Columbian cultural artifacts, traditional clothing styles, and historic

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figures and Cinco de Mayo events. As part of the Mexican American Alcohol Study, Maria Alaniz and Chris Wilkes (1995) analyzed over 124 alcohol advertisements and found three dominant themes: (a) hyper masculinity, (b) authenticity, and (c) petty nationalism. In the Cinco de Mayo Advertisements produced by Budweiser and Tecate, they found all three themes. Alaniz and Wilkes (1995, p. 442) argue that ‘‘Often combined, calls to nationalism and authenticity, however falsely constructed they might be, make the attempt to draw the consumer-citizen into the game of the market, to blur the distinctions between label and country, between the Mexican experience and the experience of the Latino away from Mexico, to use the familiar world of flag, history, and tradition in order to make unknown products familiar’’. Defenders of ‘‘Drinko de Mayo’’ advertisements and Alcohol-sponsored Cinco de Mayo events typically employ the rhetorical frames of ‘‘individual responsibility’’ and ‘‘cultural drinking habits,’’ which are associated to the ideology of color-blindness. The first frame invokes free-market and laissez faire arguments to justify contemporary forms of racial inequality. The second frame uses culture-based explanations to explain drinking behavior (Bonilla-Silva, 2004). Industry giant Anheuser-Busch Co. took offense to calls to stop targeting Latino/a youth by issuing a written statement: ‘‘To suggest that people of a certain ethnic origin should be protected from types of advertising is elitist, condescending and insulting’’ (Maggs, 1998, p. G3). The director of communications for Grupo Modelo, owner of Corona Beer, defended its sponsorship of Cinco de Mayo by making the following argument, ‘‘I think there is nothing wrong with having a Mexican drink to celebrate the day. It is the individual’s choice to drink, not ours’’ (Mohan, 2002, p. B1). Proponents of alcohol-free Cinco de Mayo events, however, point to statistics that show the high number of alcohol-related health problems and deaths among Latino/as. ‘‘These (alcohol free Cinco) people need to get a life and worry about teaching people about drinking responsibly’’ claimed one participant at a San Francisco celebration (Garofoli, 2002, p. A5). These arguments fail to recognize the ideological and structural forms of racial inequality that contribute to alcohol-related illnesses, deaths, and violence among Latinos and Latinas. A recent report by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University found that Latino/a youth below the age of 21 are more likely to be exposed to beer and alcohol ads more than any other racial and ethnic group (2005). One study on billboard advertising found that African American and Latino/a neighborhoods had more billboards advertising alcohol and tobacco

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compared to Anglo or Asian neighborhoods (Alman, Schooler, & Basil, 1991). The availability and overexposure of alcohol advertising has contributed to higher rates of alcohol consumption among Latino men. A 1992 study found 23% of Latino men drank more alcohol compared with 15% of African American men and 12% white men (Caetano & Kaskutas, 1995). These high consumption rates have led to destructive forms of behavior and health problems including chronic liver diseases, traffic crashes, homicides, and violence against women (Maxwell & Jacobson, 1989). According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) between 1999 and 2005, an average of 43% of highway fatalities have occurred on May 5 or early morning on May 6. The federal agency’s solution to reduce highway fatalities is to designate a sober driver. Modeled after anti-drunk driving campaigns around the country, the NHTSA created a ‘‘Amigos Don’t Let Amigos Drive Drunk’’ campaign (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2005). The NHTSA website offers a ‘‘Cinco de Mayo Planner’’ that consists of sample press releases, letters to the editor, talking points, posters and coasters, and radio scripts. This planner is available online for event organizers and partygoers to use prior to May 5th. However, a closer analysis of the images and rhetoric of the ‘‘Cinco de Mayo Planner’’ reveals a reproduction of the holiday as a drinking celebration. Take for examples the two posters featured on their planning kit. One of the posters features a worm inside a shot of tequila with the caption ‘‘Before you drink so much this starts looking good to you, designate the sober driver.’’ Another poster resembles a police mug shot with an Anglo man wearing a sombrero and holding up a sign with the letters, ‘‘Redford County Jail, 05-06-06, Drive Impaired on Cinco de Mayo and Spend Sies de Mayo in Jail.’’ Although these posters attempt to be eye-catching and tongue-in-cheek to drive home a message, they reinforce the image of Cinco de Mayo as a drinking holiday and misrepresenting the historical and cultural significance of the holiday.

Sexism in a Bottle In many beer and alcohol advertisements, Latina women’s bodies are transformed into a commodity form, presented as passive, waiting, and sexually available for the male drinker/consumer. Alcohol researchers Alaniz and Wilkes (1995) found in their study a clear pattern of alcohol

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advertisement aimed at the male gaze. They note that ‘‘In the process of signification that alcohol advertising begins, the active participation of the viewing male is sought, the invitation being to complete the scene in which the waiting women, the drinking, the parties, the escape to the beach, merely require the drinker to engage’’ (p. 438). Take for example, the controversial billboard that appeared several days prior to the 2004 Cinco de Mayo. The billboard featured a reclining Tecate beer bottle beaded with sweat above the tagline, ‘‘Finally, a Cold Latina.’’ The billboard, owned by Clear Channel, was first spotted one block from Robert F. Kennedy High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by high school students who complained to Labatt USA, distributor of Tecate beer (Andreozzi, 2004). Immediately complaints spread through the internet sparking outrage and calling for protests against the billboard advertisement. The billboard suggested that Latina women are sexually promiscuous, loose, and passively waiting to be conquered by Tecate male drinkers. ‘‘It just makes me angry,’’ complained one Latina woman from San Antonio, ‘‘We’re professional and intelligent women y [not] hot commodities, lascivious women, that we’re good for nothing else’’ (Silva, 2004, p. 1). Labatt’s marketing director defended the billboard by saying, ‘‘We intended no disrespect in anyway y This billboard was created to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous, for a mature adult audience’’ (Silva, 2004, p.1). Although intended for adults, the billboard was located near a high school with a large number of Latino/a youth, who felt they were being targeted and disrespected. After intense pressure from community groups in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Antonio, New York City, and Miami, Labatt USA removed the billboard at the end of May 2004 but refused to issue an apology (Zoretich, 2004). Although males are rarely featured in beer advertising campaigns, when included they are depicted as hyper masculine, physically active, and in control. Take for example the Tecate beer poster with the tagline ‘‘Celebra con Las Cinco de Mayo.’’ This poster features five brown-haired women wearing scantily clad clothing holding a Tecate beer can and surrounding a Latino delivery man. The delivery man supposedly finished unloading boxes of Tecate beer and now is ready to unload his sexual prowess on these women. The Spanish term ‘‘Las Cinco’’ not only refers to the holiday but to the five Latinas who are inviting male audiences to drink Tecate. The Tecate ad conflates the conquest of Latina women with the celebration of Cinco de Mayo. Another beer ad goes further to conflate sexuality with the Mexican Revolution. The Budweiser ad features a group of half-naked blonde women with crisscrossing bullet belts partially covering their breasts. This ad was inspired by the valiant and courageous female soldiers or soldaderas

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(female soldiers) who fought in the Mexican Revolution. But instead of holding rifles and fighting for ‘‘Tierra y Libertad ’’ (Land and Liberty), the ad shows them holding beer cans and passively waiting to be conquered by the male viewer. These advertisement campaigns not only target male consumers with racist and sexist images that engender racial, class, and gender hierarchies in American society but contribute to an environment in which it becomes normal and acceptable to sexualize and dominate Latina women’s bodies. These sexualized images have real social implications for lived experiences of Latinas. One research study established a link between high concentration of alcohol advertisements using sexist and demeaning images of Latinas and higher incidents of violent assaults against young Latinas (Alaniz, Parker, & Cartmill, 1999).

Mexican Otherness The commodification of Cinco de Mayo in the United States can also be understood as a particular type of social construction and consumption of cultural ‘‘Otherness.’’ Stuart Hall (1997) and Hooks (1992) argue that representation of racial differences is central to essentializing and naturalizing the effects of ‘‘Otherness.’’ In many private and public spaces, Cinco de Mayo events are staged and publicized to Anglo audiences because it is the one day out of the year they can enter ‘‘Mexican culture.’’ On May 5th, celebrants can ‘‘Taste the Other’’ by drinking Mexican beer, eating Mexican food, and dancing to Latin music (Domı´ nguez, 1994). Bars and restaurants, both Mexican and non-Mexican owned, are known for capitalizing on this popular day by enticing customers with posters, giveaway items, tequila, beer, and menu item specials (Hwang, 2006). For example, at Chicago’s Mambo Grill, the owner organized a Cinco de Mayo ‘‘Mambo Rita’’ beauty contest. Over 25 contestants entered the contest with each one submitting a photo and essay. ‘‘It turned into a week-long celebration since we had a party to announce the five finalists in addition to the actual day,’’ remarked the restaurant owner (Backas, 2002, p. 3). Cinco de Mayo often becomes part of the ambiance and de´cor of Mexican restaurants. In an ethnographic study of Mexican restaurants, Gayta´n (2008a) found that large-scale Mexican restaurants use an ‘‘Americanized authenticity’’ strategy to cater to a non-Mexican clientele who desire ‘‘ethnic’’ and ‘‘spicy’’ cuisine but still maintains familiarity to ‘‘American tastes.’’

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Cinco de Mayo is considered one of the busiest for Mexican restaurants, which, in an attempt to capitalize from the holiday, stage Jalapen˜o eating contests, offer salsa tasting, sell discounted margaritas, and present live Latin music bands to create a festive atmosphere. One Mexican American restaurant owner was surprised to find the large crowds gathering at her restaurant even though she did little to promote it. As she explained, ‘‘We were going to close early but we just had so many [Anglos] coming all day y I couldn’t believe how busy we were. I didn’t know [Anglos] celebrate Cinco de Mayo? And they all said yes, it was a good excuse to party and drink beer’’ (De La Cruz, 2005, p. A3). Even Mexico-born NBA player, Eduardo Najera, was surprised by how U.S. restaurants celebrate Cinco de Mayo. ‘‘Here, they celebrate, they go out and get a few margaritas, get the Mexican food rolling, but personally I never did that until I got to the U.S’’ (Lopez, 2005, p. 3). The popularity of this holiday has led some Mexican restaurants in places such as Yorktown, Virginia, Hermitage, Tennessee, and Kennewick, Washington State to change their name to ‘‘Cinco de Mayo.’’ Nightclubs also deploy direct and indirect discourses about Cinco de Mayo through their advertisements and promotional events. For example, the Boogie Nightclub in Anaheim, California, the largest club in Orange County, distributed a ‘‘Don’t Siesta thru the Fiesta’’ flyer filled with several Mexican stereotypes. In this flyer, a Mexican man with beady eyes and large mustache is wearing a sombrero clenching a tequila bottle and biting a worm with his big teeth. The white pants and huarache sandals and bullet vest were worn by peasants in the Mexican Revolution resembling the Mexican peon stereotype. The phrase ‘‘Don’t Siesta thru this Fiesta’’ in front of the cactus refers to the man˜ana syndrome, which depicts Mexicans as lazy, inferior, and present-oriented (Martinez, 1994). The nightclub also announces happy hour drink specials along with a music band that is ‘‘hotter than a jalapen˜o’’ and disc jockeys that would ‘‘making your head spin like a shot of tequila.’’ To receive free admission, customers are asked to dress up in sarapes, ponchos, sombreros or ‘‘any Cinco de Mayo attire.’’ Performing ‘‘Mexicanness’’ for this event becomes on way of consuming ‘‘Otherness.’’ The racial stereotypes reproduced in this flyer are deployed with the chief aim of getting consumers to drink more alcohol and in the process misinterpret Cinco de Mayo as a drinking occasion. Ironically, the Boogie nightclub closed down after the city revoked its business license due to the high number of alcohol-related incidents, liquor violations, and neighbor complaints (Tully, 2006).

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CINCO DE MAYO AND THE NEW RACISM A major reason for the widespread popularity of Cinco de Mayo throughout the United States is the involvement of beer and alcohol companies in the sponsorship, promotion, and commercialization of this holiday. Efforts to tap into the wallets of Latino/a consumers, whose numbers continue to increase and gradually enter the middle class, has corporate America ready and willing to spend millions in marketing campaigns. Since the 1980s, beer and alcohol companies have led the Latino marketing movement using creative marketing strategies to transform Cinco de Mayo into a commercial success. Key to this strategy is the appropriation of Mexican nationalism through the use of the Mexican flag, banners, maps, and the national colors of red, white, and green. Another effective strategy was to target the male gaze by portraying Latina bodies as bottles, nameless, passive, and waiting to be sexually conquered by male drinkers. Inside nightclubs and restaurants, beer and margaritas flow freely as Anglo American customers don their sombreros, eat Mexican food, and drink beer or tequila. Even though advertisers claim that they have shown more restraint and sensitivity in their images of Latinos and Latinas, especially when compared to the early bandito campaigns, these advertisements are anchored in a new racism ideology. According to Bonilla-Silva (2001), the new racism embeds racism with a set of new categories – cultural and language difference, individual rights and free-market ideology, de-contextualized notions of liberalism, and avoidance of racist language – that safeguards racial privilege and maintains racial inequality. It is in the actual numbers of alcohol-related illnesses and deaths that we see the material effects and consequences of these Cinco de Mayo advertising campaigns. One of best examples of this new racism is the contemporary debate over illegal immigration. When opponents defend their position against illegal immigration, they usually claim it has nothing do with ‘‘race’’ or deny they are ‘‘not a racist.’’ One reader asked the Modesto Bee newspaper why it promoted Cinco de Mayo since ‘‘Last time I checked, this is not Mexico. Mexico does not celebrate our national holidays. Why must we celebrate theirs? If I were living in Mexico I would not expect to have Fourth of July celebrations. Why should we be required to celebrate their holidays?’’ The reader blamed the popularity of Cinco de Mayo on illegal immigrants who are not only bringing cultural traditions but also burdening the health system, overcrowding public schools, and taking jobs away from citizens. The reader concluded by stating that ‘‘This isn’t Mexico, Just say no to Cinco de Mayo!’’(Keller, 2005, p. B6).

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CONCLUSION This chapter has demonstrated how that the contemporary commercialism of Cinco de Mayo maintains the racial status quo by transforming cultural traditions into marketing opportunities rather than affirming Latino/a history and culture. The barrage of Cinco de Mayo images, from billboards that portray Latinas as beer bottles to restaurant flyers that depict Mexicans as peons, negatively impact Latino/as and non-Latino/as. For Latino/as, these images not only affect their self-image and ability to gain social legitimacy but contribute to alcohol-related deaths and illnesses in the community (Maxwell & Jacobson, 1989). In addition, non-Latino/a individuals are presented with a distorted understanding of the meaning and purpose of this holiday. Instead of promoting intercultural relations, these advertisements promote misinterpretation, historical amnesia, decontextualization, mythology, Otherness, and reification, which are pervasive in contemporary American popular culture (Halter, 2000). Community leaders bristle at the commodified images of Cinco de Mayo in television beer commercials, billboards, radio shows, store displays, and restaurant and bar promotions, which contribute to the racial stereotyping of Mexico, Mexican Americans and Latino/as. The publisher of the Los Angeles Spanish Language newspaper, La Opinion, asserted, ‘‘Cinco de Mayo is a holiday invented by gringos y It’s become a day for people who are interested in selling things to the Hispanic community while ignoring us the rest of the year’’ (Stewart, 1989). In response to the hypercommercialism of the holiday, Latino/a community organizations have organized their own alcohol-free celebrations calling them ‘‘Cinco de Mayo con Orgullo’’ (Cinco de Mayo with Pride) and proclaiming that ‘‘Our Culture in Not for Sale’’ (Alamillo, 2004). There are small-scale Cinco de Mayo celebrations that seek to ‘‘take back’’ the holiday by incorporating educational programs in the festivities and by showcasing the many contributions of Latino/as to American society. Despite efforts to reclaim the holiday from corporate America, Cinco de Mayo continues to be packaged as a Latino holiday with sombreros, fiestas, pin˜atas, beer, and margaritas. In The Disuniting of America, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., argues that hyphenated American culture is divisive and undermines American values (Schlesinger, 1998). It is easier to point the finger at hyphenated Americans or Latino/a immigrants who maintain their native language and cultural traditions, but it is much harder to examine the underlying causes of a divided America. Who is responsible for this fragmentation after all? The pursuit of profit, often considered an American

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value, is rarely questioned nor is corporate America’s role in creating a fragmented society with ‘‘specialized’’ ethnic consumer markets. Yet, media and advertising firms specializing in the Latino/a market have also played a key role in stereotyping this population as ‘‘brand-loyal’’ and as a ‘‘sleeping giant’’ who only in the past two decades have been considered a consumer force, and thus worthy of commercial visibility (Da´vila, 2001). The question remains, however, whether more visibility will bring more political and economic power for the Latino/a community. Critiques by neoconservatives like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Samuel Huntington (1998), reflect an attempt to (re)positioning whiteness at the center of American society even though global capitalism has fueled demographic changes, movements of labor and capital, and cultural conflicts. When people become markets and culture becomes commodified, then free trade and profits will come before fair trade, inter-ethnic harmony and human rights.

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IF SANTA WUZ BLACK: THE DOMESTICATION OF A WHITE MYTH Charles Fruehling Springwood Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face. Frieda and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn’t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, was myfriend, myuncle, mydaddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heals. So I said, ‘‘I like Jane Withers.’’ (Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 2000 p. 19)

Merlin Kennedy and his wife, Beulah Kennedy, an African-American couple, moved from Detroit to Bloomington, Illinois, in 1958, seeking better employment. Quickly after arriving in central Illinois, and moving in with Merlin’s brother in a black neighborhood on the west side of Bloomington, they grew increasingly involved in the civil rights movement. Merlin, who would ultimately become the president of the local chapter of the National Association of Colored Peoples (NAACP) in the mid-1960s, was instrumental in establishing the city’s Human Relations Commission. His activism – which included lobbying for the first local fair housing law and travels to the deep south to register voters – attracted national attention in 1966 when he joined the Bloomington Christmas parade dressed as Santa Claus. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 239–254 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033016

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The mere presence of a black Santa in the mid-1960s was apparently too much for this Midwestern community since the police eventually removed Kennedy from the parade and tried to arrest him. Kennedy was one of several local African Americans who were moving through the parade, escorting their NAACP float. Speaking during an interview at age 75 in 1986, sitting beside Beulah, Kennedy explained, They didn’t want a back Santa ClausyWe raised the idea because a lot of people had never seen a black Santa Claus, and we just wanted to show them the thoughts of the mayor and everyone else in Bloomington – how they react to situations of that nature. And that brought their true colors outyThey was going to arrest me, but they decided not to, and the little kids on the street didn’t know me from nobody else. ‘‘There’s Santa Claus.’’ They just seen the suit, and they didn’t recognize a Black person in the suit. One woman jerked her little boy’s arm off because he called me Santa Claus. ‘‘That’s not Santa Claus.’’ (Kennedy, 1986)

Although Merlin Kennedy’s explanation of the linkage between his Santa performance and the local and national civil rights politics of the time is not wholly explicit, the tactic was surely motivated by an intuitive appreciation for symbols of racial identity and difference, of blackness and whiteness. His racial inversion of a cherished white persona worked to, if nothing else at all, generate publicity for his political work. Indeed, in its following issue, JET magazine provided an account of the incident (see also ‘‘Bloomington Parade Bars Negro Santa’’, 1966). Perhaps Kennedy was able to anticipate the outcry of his act because he remembered the national response to the cover of the 1962 issue of Esquire magazine, which featured the heavyweight boxing champion, AfricanAmerican Sonny Liston, in a red Santa Claus cap. Cited by some as the first public representation of a black Santa, the Liston cover was designed by Esquire’s art director, George Lois, who helped the magazine become known for its provocative covers. When Lois was asked by his boss to come up with something ‘‘Christmas-y,’’ he immediately thought to himself, ‘‘I’ll get Sonny Liston, who’s the biggest, baddest mother who ever lived.’’ Lois asked retired champion Joe Louis, a friend, to help enlist Liston’s cooperation. Lois reported that, ‘‘Louis said, ‘You’re kidding? Black Santa Claus?’’’ (Hughes, 2005). Upon hitting the newsstands, the issue attracted great attention, much of it negative. Esquire reportedly lost as much as a million dollars in advertising revenue and cancelled subscriptions. And although one can only hope that certain progress has been made in terms of civil rights and race relations during the 30 or so years since Merlin Kennedy played Santa, it is another question altogether to ask whether or not the very idea of a non-white Santa Claus, not to mention a black Santa,

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remains as transgressive as it was in the 1960s. The standup material of contemporary African-American comedian Dave Chappelle suggests that the notion of a black Santa remains provocative not only to white people but also to black people as well. In 2005, during a standup routine, he asked his audience to imagine the possibility of a black Santa Claus, whom he proceeded to caricature in terms that were anything but avuncular. Chappelle’s black Santa Claus would not likely arrive until, maybe, a few days after Christmas: One time I was reading the paper and I read this guy was suing the department store because he wouldn’t let him be Santa Claus because he was black. And I was actually relieved that he lost. I wasn’t ready for a black Santa Claus. Shit we wouldn’t get our presents ‘til the 28th, 29th. Sorry I was late kids. Santa got caught up with some pussy in Vegas. I had to steal some toys to get back.

Moreover, in similar routines about a Black Santa, Chappelle has speculated, that – chances are – such a racialized St. Nick would likely be a drug addict who would end up taking more things out of each home than he brought.1 Apparently, a black Santa can serve, even within black American culture, to signify the worst of racial stereotypes, if only to parody them. Aaron Mcgruder’s nationally syndicated comic strip, The Boondocks, which turns on a sarcastic critique of racism through the eyes of African-American characters, featured a strip similar to Chappelle’s routine in 2005. Two black siblings, recurring Boondocks characters, Huey and Caesar, stand in line waiting to visit a black Santa Claus, only to overhear him speak to the girl in front of them: ‘‘You listen here! Mista Santa is a white man with rosy cheeks! No such thing as black Santa! Know why?! ‘Cause if there was, people’d be getting’ their presents on the 26th!’’ When the children approach and say, ‘‘Merry Christmas,’’ Santa replies, ‘‘I hope you chimpanzees don’t have a chimney.’’ He then goes on to ask them, ‘‘So what do you negro children want for Christmas? Rims? Gold fronts? Huh?’’ (Vaden, 2005). In this chapter, I seek to unwrap the racial dimensions of Santa Claus in the United States, in particular by highlighting the ways in which this invented figure refracts whiteness and blackness. I am especially interested in how people react to and imagine embodied Santa performances, in terms of the perceived ‘‘race’’ of the actor. On the basis of a series of interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006, as well as on my examination of published essays, stories, and songs, I argue that the difficulty with which many people – both black and white – attempt to envision an African-American Santa Claus suggests an array of prevailing meanings of blackness, including

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disorder, transgression, and inversion. In addition, this study indicates various ways in which African Americans are transforming the idea of a black Santa, with particular intensity during the past decade, and are resituating this harbinger of gifts and joy within the increasingly domesticated spaces of black American identity and consumption. In preparing this chapter, over a 2-year period, I interviewed 27 people, including 19 African Americans, all of them adults. None of the white respondents had ever seen a black Santa Claus in a public space such as a shopping mall, while more than half, eleven, of the black respondents had not. These interviews do not represent an extensive survey or data set, but rather, they served to allow me to begin a broader conversation with a number of people about a topic that is often unspoken. Most of the people I spoke with were middle-class Midwesterners raised within 200 miles of Chicago. All but four, including one white person, experienced visits to a shopping mall Santa growing up, and all but three, all African American, received gifts in their homes, ‘‘from Santa Claus.’’ The following is a small sample of representative remarks, comments that were voiced by at least two people. If I brought my children to the mall to visit Santa Claus, and he was an African American man, I would turn aroundyI would try not to let them see him. Because it’s about political correctness, and has nothing to do with the Christmas spirit. (white 35year-old female) [If I saw a black Santa] I would take my kids and run out of the mall. That’s crazy! (African-American 23-year-old male) I don’t understand why people would want to have a Santa who’s not white. I mean, Santa Claus is white. The original Santa, the real people from history who gave rise to Santa Claus were white. (white 28-year-old female) Santa is magic, he’s supposed to be magic. The whole story of Santa and of Christmas is to embrace people of all ages, races, and classes. Santas of many colors is a great idea, an embracing idea. Like, I mean Santa really is all colors, right? (white 31-year-old female) I guess I would want my kids to see a black Santa, it would be important for their sense of identity, their won culture. But I wouldn’t want to emphasize Santa Claus too much in my household. (African-American 19-year-old female [no children]) Personally, I’ve got no problem with black Santas, especially in term of racism. My problem is what to say to my kid. I know there is no Santa, but my son believes. He believes that Santa is white. So what if he visits a black Santa? I could tell him that it’s not really Santa, but some magical Santa’s helper, I suppose. (white 28-year-old male)

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Unlike the sentiment conveyed in the final quote above, none of the African-American respondents noted any difficulty with black Santas based on a concern for how such an image might challenge their children’s belief in the myth. Some, however, reacted as a number of their white counterparts did, with an objection that Santa simply is not black, but is indeed white. Curiously, about half of the people I interviewed said something about the ‘‘real’’ Santa Claus being white, whether it was a claim made with conviction or was a ‘‘thinking aloud’’ musing. One African-American woman, aged 45, highlighted the tensions that may frame stagings of black santas by commenting that I have seen black santa clauses throughout my life, but they were always in a special situation, like at church or when a famous football player dresses up to go to a hospital benefit, or something, so when you see black santas, it is always a pretend situations, you know, like everyone knows it’s not the ‘‘real’’ santa but a black person playing the role. It’s not so authentic in those cases.

Her thoughts convey a set of concerns, from ambivalence, authenticity, racial marking, and nostalgia that inform the multiple readings of Santa Claus I develop later. They also underscore how one’s race mediates not only an individual’s reactions to Santa Claus, of any race, but also an individual’s opportunities to witness him. The history of the Santa Claus character is diverse and includes various overlapping personas from a number of nations and religious traditions. Although an exhaustive narration of the invention and reinvention of this icon is beyond the scope of this essay (Belk, 1993; van Renterghem, 1995; Nissenbaum, 1996; Siefker, 1997; Seal, 2005), it is critical to contextualize contemporary reactions to and musings about Santa Claus, black or otherwise, with a brief discussion of his origins. The standard version usually begins in the third century, in Myra, where an infant who would become known as Hiearch Nikolaus, or Archbishop Nicholas, was born in 280A.D. Persecuted by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for his Christian piety, under the rule of Constantine, beginning in 313A.D., Nicholas became an Archbishop and attended the Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325A.D. He was often depicted as a white bearded, elderly bishop adorned with dark or red clerical vestments. He died in 345A.D., on December 6, transforming into a patron saint and a legend in which he saved lives of those drowning at sea, gave gifts, including gold, to the poor, and fed the hungry. The story of St. Nicholas became popular throughout Europe, and by the Middle Ages, his legend became imbricated with other characters and

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religious figures. Merging with the script embodied by the bearded, flightloving Norse god, Odin, St. Nicholas was believed by children in many countries to ride a magical horse to deliver mid-wintertime gifts. In some narratives, he left switches for poorly behaved children. Martin Luther, who led the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, objected to the great popularity of St. Nicholas, whose legend by that time had assumed numerous regional and idiomatic forms, worrying that the passion for this figure might supercede his followers’ passion for Christ. To divert parents and children from St. Nicholas, who in most regions visited homes on December 6, Luther ‘‘invented’’ Kristkindle, a Christian cherub, who would bring presents to children by flight, on Christmas eve, December 24th. Ironically, this new date situated the event more closely with the winter solstice, a common date for various Pagan celebrations. In the following centuries, in Europe and eventually in the United States, numerous Santa Claus traditions evolved, including the similar albeit distinct figures of Sinterklaus, England’s Father Time, France’s Pere Noel, Nino Jesus of Spain, Kris Kringle, a Swedish gnome Tompten. Within this traditional history of Santa Claus, however, one can locate instances in which blackness is signified conspicuously, including the Dutch practice of ‘‘Black Peter’’ and in 19th century America, the emergence of blackface Santas. In the Netherlands and Belgium, children anticipate a Christmas visit from Sinterklaas, an imaginary version of St. Nicholas dressed in red, brandishing a red mitre. To deliver gifts to the children, his white horse transports him across the land, from rooftop to rooftop, and of particular interest here, he is accompanied by a number of helpers called Zwarte Pieten, or ‘‘Black Petes.’’ But contrary to the traditional Santa narrative in America, in which the worst fate children can expect is to get coal in their stockings, these Black Pete figures, who carry rods and are said the represent the devil, may on occasion punish naughty children by threatening to take them away in their sacks. Children playfully blacken their faces to perform the myth, singing songs announcing, ‘‘even if I’m black as cola I mean well.’’ Many Dutch people believe the figure of Black Pete, considered to be youthful and trickster-like, represents a servant or an enslaved person of Moorish descent. Numerous 20th and 21st century representations of Black Peter convey, unmistakably, the hyper-black, red-lipped faces with exaggerated features known as blackface, and in the past several decades, the Netherlands has seen protests against Black Peter, first started by a growing Surinamese immigrant population. Nevertheless, defenders of Black Peter claim that his ‘‘blackness’’ conveys nothing at all about racial

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blackness and that the tradition emerged at a time when black symbolized the evil forces of demonology. Others argue that Black Peter blackness results from crawling down chimneys. Tony van Renterghem wrote (1995, p. 102) that this icon ‘‘has led to ridiculous accusations of racial prejudice, with pressure to use ‘white’ helpers. This is a silly situation since [he] was never Negroid, but only the Church’s representation of a swarthy, satanic force.’’ Even race-studies scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse is willing to separate, historically at least, Black Peter from racism. Although he writes (1992, p. 165) that ‘‘Black Peter represents profound ambivalences intrinsic to European culturey[since] the figure is an allegory of the process of Christianization and of the domestication of Pagan forces,’’ he insists that, ‘‘[f]rom his origins in Early Christian demonology down throughout the Middle Ages, Black Peter appears to have little to do with Africa or black people.’’ Pierterse is quick to acknowledge, however, that one cannot easily dismiss the significance of encoding demonology in terms of blackness. Black and white Dutch people do continue to protest Black Peter, whose blackness may indeed originate from a religious, cosmological color bias rather than a racial one. Nevertheless, more contemporary instantiations of the icon fit too comfortably within a racialized Netherlands, in which blackness plays the binary to whiteness, as a source of disorder, evil, and submission. Indeed, Dutch writer Mieke Bal (1999) refuses to gloss over the racialized elements of Black Peter, reflecting in an essay about her childhood memories that were framed by a belief ‘‘in’’ Sinterklaas: ‘‘On those rare occasions when I saw a black person, I said, or thought: a Zwarte Piet who missed the boat and had to spend the year here. Poor guy!’’ She insists, of course, that, No culture would invent such a racist tradition today. This one is particularly troublesome, with racism being worked over by classism – Zwarte Piets are servants – and sexism – they are feminised. The clownish behaviour even flirts with the traditional question raised in the sixteenth century and again in the eighteenth, right up to abolition, of whether blacks were quite human.

The racial valences and ambivalences that are packed into the spectacle of Black Peter emerge idiomatically, within the space of Dutch identity, but they suggest that such tensions (of race and class, especially) may from other national and cultural performances of Santa Claus. In a different and perhaps more convincing way, blackness and race relations framed some of the colonial experimentations with Santa Claus in the 19th-century United States, and those forgotten experiments still articulate with the current anxieties and giddiness regarding black Santas.

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Even those with the most casual investments in structuralism would surely admit that any number of structural binaries saturate the various Santa myths, including for example young/old, Christian/Pagan, bounty/poverty, night/day, and good/bad. In the development of Christmas, as well as other holidays, historians (Kuper, 1993; Cockrell, 1997) have also noted that tensions between the public and the domestic and between the religious and the secular have been important. Stephen Nissebaum (1996) argues that an emerging struggle between the social classes marked the development of Christmas practices in the early 19th century. At the risk of oversimplifying, the contested spaces of Christmas celebration included, on the one hand, the Victorian and Puritan commitment to chaste and pious gatherings among close family, only venturing out to attend church, and on the other, a carnivelesque working class celebration enacted in the streets and the pubs. The line demarcating this struggle between the ‘‘parlor and the street’’ was always porous, crossed by people of all classes, in all directions. Although the Puritans had succeeded in temporarily succeeded in banning Christmas in the early 17th century in New England, the Victorian upper classes of the early 19th century in New York expressed angst regarding the alcohol and debauchery connected to the holiday. For example, in 1839, the December 23 New York Herald responded to reports of Christmas season drunkenness and rioting by writing, ‘‘Let all avoid taverns and grog shops for a few days at least, and spend their money at home’’ (cited in Nissebaum, 1996). As such, then, people could ‘‘make glad upon that one day, the domestic hearth, the virtuous wife, the innocent, smiling, merry-hearted children, and the blessed mother.’’ Such sentiment is easily recognized, now, for its classicism and, indeed, racism. The perceived misbehavior of Christmas celebrants did not exclusively turn on alcohol, however, as a constellation of lower class people and youth from all classes conspired to perform the carnivalesque role of the mischievous prankster. In the 1820s, in Philadelphia and later New York, a figure known as Belsinkle joined a still evolving Santa Claus, indeed becoming his uninvited counterpart. As Nissenbaum notes, Belsinkle was always played by a person, as thus encountered as a real, visible person (unlike Santa, whose unseen work was only anticipated and explained after the fact). Men, generally of the lower classes, would move about town in disguises, and would ‘‘offer small gifts (usually of food) to good children and intimidate ill-behaved children by threatening to hit them (or actually doing so) with a rod or a whip as they reached for the gifts’’ (Nissenbaum, 1996, p. 100). On occasion, Belsinkles would adopt the role of beggars,

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demanding rather than offering gifts (Ibid. p. 101), and by the middle decades of the century, young boys were also playing the role of the Belsinkle. James L. Morris, a shopkeeper from Morgantown, Pennsylvania described these rituals in 1842 with a modicum of disdain: Christmas Eve – a few ‘‘belsnickels’’ or ‘‘kriskinkles’’ were prowling about this evening frightening the women and children, with their uncouth appearance – made up of castoff garments made parti-colored with patches, a false face, a shaggy head of tow, or rather wig, falling profusely over the shoulders and finished out by a most patriarchal beard of whatsoever foreign [material] that could possibly be pressed into such service.

Of particular interest is the fact that sometimes these ‘‘false faces’’ noted by Mr. Morris were clearly blackface disguises. The first documentation of a blackface Belsinkle is from a report in the Pennsylvania Gazette, December 29, 1827 (Shoemaker, 1959, p. 74). The space of the street, inhabited by this alliance of lower class people, juveniles, and servants drinking, carousing, and performing Belsinkle, grew to include the space of the theater, where blackface minstrelsy already prevailed. Nissenbaum explains that by 1843, a blackface figure known as Old Krisskringle ‘‘had become the lead character of a Christmas pantomime performed in concert with a minstrel show.’’ Moreover, he mentions an 1840 collection of minstrel songs that attributes their authorship to ‘‘Santaclaus,’’ featuring a cover with a dancing blackface illustration (1996, p. 127; see also Cockrell, 1997, pp. 47–48). Nissenbaum does not attempt to explain the linkage between Santa Claus, or even Belsinkles, and blackface, although he does sketch an historical context, noted by numerous others, in which blackness signified inversion and transgression, excess and folly. And although the Belsinkle tradition had apparently disappeared by the 1900s, and most forms of minstrelsy were gone by the middle 1900s, in many contemporary arenas blackness continues to carry similar meanings (Pieterse, 1992; King & Springwood, 2001). As the earlier examples indicate, for many, a black Santa is rendered possible only in so far as it can serve to parody blackness or provoke whiteness. For many black Americans, a white Santa was never regarded as anything but a naturally received fixture of their social world, an icon whose hegemony rendered utterly impossible a black Santa, if not an Asian or Indian or Latino Santa for that matter. Such complacency should not be accepted at face value, however, as the idea of a black Santa Claus has become increasingly tamed by practices of consumption and domestication.

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Raku, a somewhat obscure African-American rap and hip hop group released a single in 2002, ‘‘If Santa Claus Wuz Black,’’ adding to a large corpus of references to the idea of an African-American Santa Claus. The lyrics lament the impoverished environment of the ghetto while confronting the empty promise of the myth of the magical, gift-bearing Santa: Does I hurt yo feelins Cuz I won’t sit on your lap? I ain’t callin’ you strange, but hey, you never know. I ain’t never seen no white dude wit a red suit befoe. My grandpappy owned a few, but he was quite a pimp, A black tilted brim with a cane for his limp. But all you pimpin’ is us. Po, broke, and ol’ folk Cuz you ain’t no Saint Nick, And I’m about to let ‘em know. Yo, Santa Claus likes rich kids better, Even tho they folks take home way mo’ cheddar. Whateva they want they get, but we don’t get jack. Damn, I wish Santa Claus was black.

Many of the African-American people I spoke to indicated a desire – albeit much less sarcastic and angry – for their children to visit black Santa Clauses, and some had been able to do so, in shopping malls in both Detroit and Cleveland. The common explanation for such a desire seemed uncomplicated and straightforward, that is would be ‘‘a way to emphasize our African American identity and heritage.’’ In concert with these sentiments, a consumer market offering Hallmark-style, black Santa statuettes, paintings, books, and, yes, shopping mall venues featuring black Santas, emerged in the 1970s and has continued to expand into the present. And on the Internet, personalized Christmas letters from a ‘‘black Santa Claus’’ may be purchased for several dollars. Santa’s Kwanzaa (Thomas, 2004), an illustrated children’s book published in 2004, reframes the ‘‘Twas the night before Christmas’’ story in terms of an African-American Kwanzaa experience. An exhausted but satisfied African-American Santa arrives back at the North Pole early on December

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26 after a night of delivering presents. Entering his house, he pulls off his traditional crimson coat and black boots, ‘‘which he left on the floory When who should appear but the light of his life The behind-the-scenes maven, his loving boos-wife Who held out his kinte to resounding applause, And shouted out with the elves, Welcome Home Santa Kwaz!

Santa, now comfortably adorned in a yellow, green, red, and black kinte, is then brought into the living room to soak his tired feet and to begin the 7day Kwanzaa celebration. His elves, Nia, Kuumba, Kuji-cha-gulia, Imani, Umoja, Ujamma, and Ujima, named in Swahili after the seven principles of Kwanzaa line up to lay on his lap the traditional Kwanzaa gifts. The book clearly reaches out to black American children and their families, constructing a linkage between the Santa Claus of Christmas and the ethnic holiday of Kwanzaa. As such, children are invited to imagine an African-American Santa Claus who, perhaps, is sympathetic to their experiences and dreams. Scholar Gerald Early, who celebrates Kwanzaa, reflects on the emergence of this holiday in terms of his identity as an African American in a 1997 essay published in Harper’s Magazine. Recalling from his youth the sort of ethnic jealousy, or angst, indicated in the epigraph beginning this essay – the thoughts of a young black girl portrayed in a Toni Morrison novel – Early wrote that frequently during the 1950s and 1960s, black folks would ‘‘complain’’ about the ‘‘whiteness of Christmas.’’ He added: It was customary to hear the opinion, usually voiced only at Christmas, that black parents should not buy white dolls for their daughtersyFor the most insistently raceconscious, there was the political dilemma, wrapped in spiritual guise, of praying to a white baby Jesus with a white Joseph and Mary looking on. The cre`che at my all-black church has a blond baby Jesus. This did not seem odd to me or, I’m sure, to most members of my congregation until after 1964, when Black Power and black nationalism became strong movements within the black community. It was then that I first hear talk of celebrating a black Christmas. (1997, p. 59)

Later in the essay, Early comments on Kwanzaa, specifically, arguing that with that holiday, ‘‘African Americans seek nothing less than redemption from their status as second-class Americans and incomplete Africans.’’ And, with more skepticism, he adds, ‘‘With Kwanzaa, the African American reduces the complexity of his ancestry to the salve of cure. All that we get,

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from millennia of history and profound cultural experience, is too feel good about themselves.’’ Of course, many African Americans would not agree with such a critical reading of Kwanzaa or other efforts to blacken Christmas. But in any case, it is necessary to understand that for the past decade, or even the last 20 years, efforts to ‘‘blacken’’ the Christmas experience – like practices surrounding virtually all celebrations in the United States – are framed by practices of consumption and processes of commodification. One may pay for a child to receive a letter from a black Santa Claus, one may purchase a handsome African-American Santa statuette to place upon the mantle, or one may travel to the ultimate western space of commodification, the shopping mall, to sit upon the lap of a black Santa, but only ‘‘in select locations.’’ Although such forms of consumption may indeed provide emotionally significant forms of ethnic affiliation, like all practices connected to the space of the commodity, they are not likely to forge significant interruptions of the prevailing currents of racism in the United States. The opportunities for celebrating a ‘‘blacker’’ Christmas in terms of popular consumption are not in any way unimportant, and clearly, these are practices that before at least the 1960s would not have been possible. Yet, just as the more hegemonic forms of Santa Claus have been domesticated from their earlier, often transgressive and working class contexts, the African-American Santa Claus is emblematic of a much tamer black space than was emergent in the 1960s period of black nationalism and a politics of transgression. But even today, when some seek out black mall Santas, others – of all races – allow themselves to be amused by simply imagining the possibility of a non-white St. Nicolas. As such, Santa Claus continues as an always racialized but multivalent sign, always pregnant with ambiguity, provocation, and inversion. Clearly, many contemporary African Americans are motivated to expect and to seek out representations of black Santa Claus, to allow them to play an important role in their celebrations of Christmas. But whether or not they are willing to participate in the Santa tradition, many African Americans are just as convinced of the whiteness of Santa Claus as was the great African-American writer John Henrik Clarke. Not as well know as some of his contemporaries, Clarke penned an important short story in 1939 (p. 181), ‘‘Santa Claus is a White Man.’’ The protagonist is a young black boy, whose mother – a domestic servant – gives him a quarter to do some Christmas shopping downtown. Excited by the thought of his first shopping trip, he imagines how he will spend his wealth: ‘‘A nickel for something for

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Daddy, another nickel for Baby, another for Aunt Lil. And ten whole cents for Mummy’s present. Something beautiful and gorgeous, like a string of pearls, out of the ten cent store’’ (p. 181). Arriving downtown, he spies a ‘‘bedraggled Santa, waving a tiny bell beside a cardboard chimney.’’ The boy imagines that this is not the ‘‘real’’ Santa but merely one of his helpers. Soon, he is surrounded by a gang of white boys, who begin shoving and threatening him. ‘‘Whereya goin’ nigger? An’ don’t you know we don’t allow niggers in this neighborhood?’’ A crowd gathers, and eventually, the man playing Santa Claus pushes his way through the bodies. To the child’s horror, the man joins the gang, hurling epitaphs and teasing the boy about being lynched. When some of the ruffians actually start looking for a rope, the Santa man hesitates, ‘‘ah think this niggah’s too lil’l t’ lynch. Besides it’s Christmas timey’’ (p. 185). Santa then proceeds to steal the boy’s quarter, which he gave to one of the bullies, a red-haired youth. Clarke narrates, ‘‘A smile came to the white youth’s face and flourished into jubilant laughter. He turned the quarter from one side to the other in the palm of his hand, marveling at it. Then he held it up so the crowd could see it, and shouted gleefully, Sure there’s a Santa.’’ Others, including Boondocks designer and cartoonist Aaron McGruder, remain unconvinced. The Boondocks franchise, which began as a daily comic strip – highlighted earlier for its satire of a Black Santa – expanded into an animated television serial in 2005, allowing McGruder continued to unpack the racial dimensions of St. Nicholas, televisually. In fact, the narratives about Santa Claus that emerge in the animated Boondocks may offer a performative analysis of consumption, commodity, and race as insightful as any of the essay that comprise this special issue. McGruder’s mode of representation, and the spaces it inscribes, bring into interactive conflict a number of competing racial and social class discourses in a way that evinces Mikail Bakhtin’s sense of ‘‘heteroglossia.’’ A hybrid, interpenetrating constellation of voices and images that form an aesthetic of parody, but in ‘‘another’s speech in another’s language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way’’ (Bakhtin, 1982, p. 324). As such, what is valuable about a story emerges from conflict between speech emanating from actors in different spaces and places. The televised Boondocks attempt to confront the meaning of Santa Claus’s race comes during a post-9/11 moment in which, increasingly, sophisticated parodies of race proliferating (see Neal, 2002, for example), as new nationalisms provoke newer formations of difference and resistance. In the ninth episode of the inaugural season, titled ‘‘A Huey Freeman Christmas,’’ the program’s two protagonists, African-American brothers

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Huey and Riley Freeman, parse the meaning of Christmas and Santa Claus in a not-so-subtle popular culture parody of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Huey, a precocious Black Nationalist always poised to deconstruct race relations and white mythology, and Riley, junior gansta wannabe are adjusting to their move from Chicago’s South Side to a suburb called Woodcrest. In this episode, in an odd turn, Huey is recruited by a wellmeaning teacher to direct the school’s Christmas pageant. When Huey counters that he hates Christmas, he is granted total creative control. Upset upon seeing his cast, composed of mostly white classmates, goofing off and dancing about, he resorts to bringing in Angela Bassett and Denzel Washington to headline his production of ‘‘The Adventures of Black Jesus.’’ He even manages to persuade Quincy Jones to offer technical assistance. While Huey begins rehearsals, viewers get to see Riley exercise his pent-up rage against the myth and commodification of Santa Claus at the local shopping mall. Reminiscent of Charlie Brown’s sister Sally’s letter-to-Santa, Riley writes a threatening note: Dear Santa, You are a bitch ass nigga. I heard the mall is hiring extra security to protect you. That’s a bitch move, Santa! I’m coming for that ass again, until you pay what you OWE! Sincurely (sic) yours, The Santa Stalker

As Santa emerges from a carpeted candy-cane stage and approaches his throne, to the glee of a large crowd of mostly white children, Riley moves in with his pellet gun and tries to ‘‘assassinate’’ him for ‘‘not visiting the ghetto.’’ Although he survived the attack, the mall Santa runs off and Riley escapes the pursuit of the mall security guard. The next scene at the mall features a new mall Santa, this time played by regular Boondocks character Uncle Ruckus, and old, conservative AfricanAmerican man who is more into white folks than he is into black power. He walks to the font of the Santa stage and calls out to his audience: Hey there, pretty li’l white chil’un. Now look at all them precious little vanilla colored faces. Now I know ya’ll think old Santy Claus look a little bit darker than he used to. Ho Ho. But that’s just cause Santy Claus got a little bit a ritiligo, see that’s the opposite of what Michael Jaqckson got. Don’t’ worry, no Jesus juice up here. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.

A young girl, Jazmine, a racially ambiguous recurring Boondocks character, protests, ‘‘That’s not Santa! That’s an impostor,’’ and then all of the parents gather their children in arms and begin departing, leaving Uncle Ruckus standing alone, in his Santa suit.

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After the staging of Huey’s show, which details the non-Christian, pagan elements of Christmas with the nuance and precision of scholarly historiography, everyone in the end feels better and closer together. Jazmine concludes by asserting that the true meaning of the Christmas story is that ‘‘Santa died for our gifts and rose from the dead and moved to the North Pole and because of that, every year Santa comes down to forgive us our sins and give us eternal presents.’’ The racial anguish underlying Clarke’s 1930s portrayal of Santa Claus, I think, remains central to the contemporary American experiences of this polysemous, full-bodied Christmas icon. But today, the parodic spaces of American popular culture exhibit an evermore sophisticated awareness of the complexity of Santa’s racial, social, and class dimensions and his potential as a site of intervention. And without a doubt, as the commodification of Santa Claus continues to intensify, so will his race, whether black, white, or other, remain a marked feature of his persona.

NOTE 1. This routine was performed by comedian Dave Chapelle during, Dave Chapelle: For What It’s Worth, a June 2004 televised special, staged at the Filmore in San Francisco.

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. (1982). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. M. Holquist (Ed.), V. Liapunov (Ed., Trans.), K. Brostrom (Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Bal, M. (1999). Zwarte Piet’s Bal Masque´. In: A. Fox & M. Bal (Eds), Zwarte Piet (pp. 2–70). London: Black Dog Publishing. Belk, R. W. (1993). Materialism and the making of the modern American Christmas. In: D. Miller (Ed.), Unwrapping Christmas (pp. 75–104). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bloomington Parade Bars Negro Santa. (1966). Chicago’s American (20 November). Clarke, J. H. (1967/1939). Santa Claus is a white man. In: L. Hughes (Ed.), The best short stories by Negro writers: An anthology from 1899 to the present (pp. 181–187). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Cockrell, D. (1997). Demons of disorder: Early blackface minstrels and their world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Early, G. (1997). Dreaming of a black Christmas. Harper’s Magazine, January 1, 294(1760), 55–62. Hughes, J. (2005). The graphic arts: George Lois. Stop Smiling, (20)‘‘The Boxing Issue’’ March 2005. Available at owww.stopsmilingonline.com/features_detail.html?id1 ¼ 283W. Retrieved on 24 July 2006.

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Kennedy, M. (1986). Transcription of oral history interview conducted on 2 February 1986. McLean County Museum of History Archives [Black History file]. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (2001). Beyond the cheers: Race as spectacle in college sport. New York: SUNY Press. Kuper, A. (1993). The English Christmas and the family: Time out and alternative realities. In: D. Miller (Ed.), Unwrapping Christmas (pp. 157–175). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morrison, T. (2000). The bluest eye. New York: Plume Publisher. Neal, M. A. (2002). Soul babies: Black popular culture and the post-soul aesthetic. London: Routledge. Nissenbaum, S. (1996). The battle for Christmas: A cultural history of America’s most cherished holiday. New York: Vintage Books. Pieterse, J. N. (1992). White on black: Images of Africa and blacks in western popular culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Seal, J. (2005). Nicholas: The epic journey from saint to Santa Claus. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. Shoemaker, A. (1959). Christmas in Pennsylvania: A folk-cultural study. Kutztown, PA: Pennsylvania Folklore Society. Siefker, P. (1997). Santa Claus, last of the wild men. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Thomas, G. E. (2004). Santa’s Kwanzaa. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. Vaden, T. (2005). Hip-hop comic shakes up readers. The News & Observer. Available at owww.newsobserver.com/576/story/214747.htmlW. Retrieved on July 20, 2006. van Renterghem, T. (1995). When Santa was a shaman: The ancient origins of Santa Claus and the Christmas tree. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications.

UNSETTLING COMMODITY RACISM C. Richard King Commodity racism, as conceived by Anne McClintock (1995), describes a novel cultural formation, binding difference, power, and consumption to one another, a creation at the interface of imperialism and industrialism in the late 19th century that offered an emergent language to simultaneously make sense of difference, fashion identity, cultivate desire, and sell stuff. Importantly, as it remapped the world, placing peoples and cultures in ranked social locations, it also reconfigured gender, the body, and taste as it rerouted the flows between public and private spheres. At its core, as expressed quite clearly in the soap advertisements McClintock analyzes, commodity racism stated the (then) accepted facts of white supremacy, underscoring the propriety of imperial expansion and settling, in many ways, for consumers hailed through it the racial question of the day. Although commodity racism persists, proving itself to be highly productive and resilient as the foregoing essays attest, it has shown itself to be less stable, more contested, and decidedly political over the past half century. Of course, as the introduction outlines, the shifting contours of race and racism in the United States contribute mightily to this state of uneasiness: white supremacy qua segregation no longer enjoys overt support or legal endorsement; yet wealth, privilege, good health, and status accrue disproportionately in the favor of whites. Whiteness, still the norm, has become increasingly uneasy, questioned, and suspect. And, consumer culture, not surprisingly, has emerged as one of the key sites of struggle

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over white power and the ways in which it can be articulated in an increasingly multicultural society, marked by the traumas of settler colonialism and haunted by the legacies of racial inequality. This is neither the essay I intended to write nor the one I wanted you to read. I had envisioned and endeavored to draft a multivocal piece, informed by the ethos of performance ethnography; unfortunately, my tape recorder failed. I had traveled to Amhearst, Massachusetts to give a lecture and was fortunate enough to meet over lunch with faculty engaged in Native American Studies. We had set aside our time to discuss representations of indigenous peoples in the media. Indeed, by this point (the Fall of 2006), pop culture in the United States had witnessed a return of the native. To offer but two examples, a Kahlua campaign featuring ancient indigenous elites (apparently Maya or Aztec) who worship white consumers of the liquor and a recent Capital One advertisement in which a EuroAmerican father tells his family they are using their credit card miles to visit their ancestors, not in Ireland, but in an unnamed region of the Amazon (see Merskin herein). Of particular interest to all assembled – a collection of Native American and EuroAmerican scholars and graduate students from anthropology, history, and literature – was the ‘‘Life with Zagar’’ campaign for Bud Light. Our conversation proved to be amazing, a wonderful exchange, I was certain would allow for methodological experimentation and critical insights; however, when I went to transcribe the audio tape, much to my horror, the background noise overwhelmed the voice, making them all but indecipherable. What follows in this section, and to a lesser extent, the chapter as a whole, is an effort to reconstruction that dialogue, to learn from and build upon it, to apply its critical spirit more broadly. Let me begin then by returning to Zagar and Steve, for they, in many ways, inspired me to pursue this volume. Anheuser-Busch launched ‘‘Life with Zagar’’ in Summer 2006, in a series of television commercials and online (archived here: http://zagar.domanidev.com:8080/). The campaign centered on Steve, a white, twenty-something, everyman, and his new roommate, Zagar, an indigenous man. Every installment, whether in a television spot or online at Steve’s blog or Zagar’s Flickr page, turned on the comedic complications arising from Steve’s well intentioned efforts to assimilate his primitive roommate into the rituals of modern life (for instance, pick up basketball and dating) and close with misunderstandings and tensions being resolved by a mutual love of Bud Lite. The entire marketing enterprise unfolds like a running gag on Saturday Night Live – at once sophomoric and insensitive – designed to prompt an instanteous laugh and foster a viral phenomenon. Savage difference and

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racial inferiority fuels the entire campaign and fostered an intense backlash from Indian Country and beyond. Zagar had two origin stories, one front stage and the other back stage. The former, posted online, brought together a series of cliche´s about tribal society, imagined primitives, and natural manhood: Hailing from parts unknown y [his] birth is legendary. While on an expedition to gather berries, Zagar’s mom, Sutikikan, started feeling pains. Trouble is she and her husband were 45 feet up a tree y The Medicine Man was back in the village y Zagar was born on the branches of a tree.

Later he would show himself to be a joker, pass through a ‘‘Becoming a Man Ceremony,’’ and develop an interest in the outside world. Desiring something more, he determined to leave home, to which his mother said in part: ‘‘Ooiu jfklas;jr nvm, cxz mjjkljkfasr jkljr jopweiru ’’ (Bud Light, 2006). After a journey of several months, he made his way to the city and through ‘‘a roommate finder service’’ was placed with Steve. Equally telling is the back stage version. Inspired by one of the creative staff member’s experience with ‘‘a really bad roommate in college,’’ DDB, an advertising agency based in Chicago, ‘‘thought wouldn’t it be funny if we paired up a bad roommate with someone, and that the only thing about him was that he liked Bud Light y It’s a classic odd couple story’’ (Baar, 2006). How or why oddness devolved into a juxtaposition of civilization and savagery or the implication of the marketing of beer through racialized difference long repudiated, importantly, was neither asked by the reporter, nor pondered by the ad executive he interviewed. In fact, the later suggested that in addition to the conventional television appearances and an elaborate web presence, DDB wanted to create an unironic performance art piece in which an actor playing Zagar would wander the streets of New York City in his ‘‘primitive garb.’’ Clearly, it is more than possible that the logics of commodity racism circle back to the same core set of contrasts and in turn demands a common set of social spaces to unleash them: primitive others on public display for the titillation of the masses – where are Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pen˜a when you need them? Once conjured, each piece of the larger narrative of their life follows their shared misadventures. A friendly game of basketball encapsulates the pattern of the half a dozen episodes. A generic, public basketball court. Steve:

I’ll take Zagar Asking my roommate Zagar to play, maybe wasn’t the best idea Cover Pete.

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[Zagar shots Pete in neck with dart from blow gun] [Zagar clotheslines a player with what appears to be a taunt vine rope] Steve:

Occasionally he bent the rules.

[Zagar hit another opponent in leg and pursue the ball and proceeds to choke him] Steve:

Zagar let go

Opponent:

Come on play the game.

[Zagar shoot ball with arrow, deflating it] Steve:

Okay, so the game didn’t go so well

[Cut to clip of glass being filled with Bud Lite] Voice over:

Refreshingly smooth Bud Lite y Always worth it

[cut to bar with Zagar squatting on table, toasting other players] Steve:

But at least we had the most important thing in common

[Zagar holds ball on the arrow] Steve:

Yeah that was a good shot, Zagar.

Steve:

We all love Bud Lite.

The wild, childish, violent, irrational, nearly naked, primitive, unable to learn the simple game of basketball or get along well with others contrasted with the friendly, good natured, everyman who tries and suffers for the Other’s failings. ‘‘Steve’’ recounted each episode online (at ‘‘his’’ now defunct blog) as well, confirming the difference of Zagar, noting with great glee the excitement brought to the mundane game by Zagar’s ‘‘live or die’’ attitude (read natural instinct) and how effective his use of bow and blowgun were. At his blog, Steve add other entries, meant I suppose to bring the relationship to life, ranging from his new roommates effectiveness in getting cable to lists of things Zagar had eaten – house plant, a parakeet, arms from a leather jacket, a mole, two-year old jar of mayo, chapstick, denture cream, lawn fertilizer, and a cat. The native returned remain uncivilized and inhuman, a prop for white humor, one of he spoils of settlement. Importantly, in the end, the campaign and its grounding categories were less settled and open to contestation. Rob Schmidt (2006), an early and vocal critic of the ads, who maintains a blog (http://www.bluecorncomics. com/newsrock.htm) concerned with the depictions of Native Americans in popular culture, echoed much of the conversation I had with colleagues in

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Massachusets, in column he wrote for Indian Country Today. ‘‘Why exactly,’’ he asked, ‘‘is this ad campaign so problematic?’’ First, the choice of settings is unfair because it undermines the Indian. If Steve were dropped into a jungle, he’d seem just as foolish as Zagar does in the city. But the campaign doesn’t try this switch because it would subvert the message: that urban life is best and Bud Light is its centerpiece y Second y he’s apparently ignorant of everything that’s happened since Columbus y Third, the ad shows no awareness that Indians have their own complex cultural heritages. For instance, does Anheuser-Busch think Indians don’t understand pets? They domesticated such animals as the llama, dog and turkey. Does Anheuser-Busch think they don’t play sports? They invented lacrosse and the precursor to basketball, using raised hoops and rubber balls y This campaign is a throwback to the days when Americans portrayed Indians as pure savages: unable to speak English, uninterested in peace and harmony, intent only on killing and ravaging. It’s no better than a 19th century minstrel show that depicted Negro behavior as stupid and stereotypical.

Schmidt’s assessment mirrors a boycott of Anheuser-Busch launched online (http://www.petitiononline.com/nozagar/): These ads present a stereotypic and denigrating view of native peoples, promulgating the perception of natives as clowns and ‘‘savages’’, with no sense of socially appropriate behavior and as little more than caricatures to be laughed at and used as ‘‘entertaining’’ marketing tools. Examples of, (but not limited to,) insulting and racist stereotypic imagery,(as performed by the native character ‘‘Zagar’’;)  Eating a household pet  Depiction of behavior that implies cannibalism-native stews white man in bathtub  Bashing at a bowling ball with a bowling pin as though too stupid to realize it is not a coconut  Chimpanzee-like crouching in almost all situations  Shooting people with bows and arrows, blowgun use in a public situation  War paint and ‘‘clothing’’ that mocks the cultural accoutrements and attires of many Indigenous Peoples, especially those of North American and South American Indians.  Overwhelmingly visible physical resemblance to several aboriginal populations still inhabiting this planet  Made up Gibberish presented as ‘‘language’’  Malignant representations of Indigenous Peoples as backward and ignorant of any, and all, modern day technology and socially appropriate behavior. It is the position of these undersigned that such representations are objectifying and are offensive to ALL peoples y

More than 500 people signed the petition, giving voice to myriad discussion at American Indian websites, bulletin boards, and discussion groups.

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Roughly three months after its initial appearance, ‘‘Life with Zagar’’ ended. Importantly, Anheuser-Busch discontinued the campaign in response to the ongoing negative response and from pressure exerted by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility [ICCR]. According to an email from ICCR Program Director Gary Brouse (personal communication, 9 September 2006) summarizing a conference call with corporate executives: ‘‘Anheuser-Busch said they do regret the situation and the have the highest regard for Indigenous people.’’ Nevertheless, the beer maker did not pull the campaign immediately, but only promised to cease the promotion by the end of the month, or three weeks later. Although called to settle up for its transgression, Anheuser-Busch seems unable to find a register in which to be accountable. That is, while recognizing and even regretting ‘‘the situation,’’ it does not appear to appreciate how it profited on notions of white supremacy and indigenous inferiority, nor grasp the magical workings of commodity racism animating its quest for consumers exposed by those intent to politicize the campaign. In the end, much was left unsettled: historical traumas, whiteness, preferred readings, the prospect for justice. This essay, then, emerged from a space of opposition, a critical conversation directed at interpretation and negation, and a moment in a broader movement against the conceits of stability, superiority, and simplistic summation. As such, it centers on the unsettled: on the one hand, it opens a dialogue about things many consider closed, final, over, race and racism, the colonization of North America; on the other hand, it traces the limits of efforts to trouble white power and privilege within/through the spectacles of consumer culture. On a personal and professional level (both of which always are political), it reflects a persistent dis-ease – a dissatisfaction with prevailing the identities, ideologies, and interactions associated with the reigning social formation, the resilience of racial hierarchies in plain sight yet seemingly without witnesses, and the constraints imposed on the spirit and values of critical inquiry within the increasingly instrumental and corporate spaces of the academy. It is about challenging, perhaps even as Chin (2007) would have it in her wondrous autoethnography, ‘‘The Consumer Diaries,’’ it is about hating, these ‘‘traditions.’’ Such impassioned engagements, she rightly notes, cannot come from outside of these traditions, but demand hat we place ourselves amid, in relation, and through our entanglements: Too often our scholarly efforts exempt us from the daily problems we document with such passion. We escape by taking flight into the heights of theory, explaining, yet again, how structural inequality works or why racism persists. Theory is not a free pass allowing us to travel through these territories unscathed; neither is theory a protective

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shield against our own culpability. Understanding capitalism, structural inequality, racism, sexism or any other of the myriad social ills does not inoculate anyone from perpetuating the very structures we seek to destabilize. Such is the nature of hegemony, as Gramsci reminds us; whether we like it or not, hegemony is us. We must own up to it, own up to it all, before we can hope to hate these traditions properly, that is, with the murderous intent they so richly deserve. (p. 352)

Chin rightly reminds us that we cannot get off the hook; we must be present; we must work within and against ‘‘these traditions,’’ calling into questions the myriad conjunctures where cultural signs and social conditions meet and repeatedly visit trauma on individuals and communities through impassioned and compassionate critique. In part, this means, as I endeavor to do here, crafting a lens and language capable of engaging the force fields shaping my life as a white scholar committed to antiracist intervention and as an upper middle class consumer who increasingly desires radical change far more than the stuff available for purchase at the corner store. Four or five years ago, Wal-Mart announced plans to build a supercenter in the community I call home. I am certain that it was one of scores of such projects rolled out that year by the retail giant. Quite quickly, a grassroots movement emerged to oppose the development. Although not active in the group, I was sympathetic, contribute money in support, and wrote letters to local paper advancing its cause. Impact on the community and the multinational’s business practices motivated many who spoke out against the proposed supercenter. For me, its treatment of employees, especially women, in North America as well as its exploitation of workers via global networks of production, prompted my opposition. What surprised me, but perhaps should not have, was what happened when a collection of community members had the audacity to say no to the logics of development, the needs for a greater tax base, and the urges of capital. A rather vocal contingent of local residents rose up in defense of the retail giant, forming its own grassroots movement and waging a war of words with opponents online and in the community newspaper. In the end, the city council gave approval to construction, but forevermore, consumption would be political. Or better said, consumption, always already political, had been newly politicized as the stakes, entanglements, and consequences of making, buying, and selling stuff were made visible, palpable, inescapable. The shortlived and some might say unsuccessful movement is but one instance of a broader social movement through and against capitalism and consumerism. Micheletti (2003) and Micheletti, Føllesdal, and Stolle (2004) have dubbed this political consumerism (see also Jacobsen & Dulsrud, 2007; Johnston, 2008).

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My introduction to political consumerism or politicized consumption came about 15 years ago through the magazine AdBusters. Initially, I was smitten with its philosophy and projects, particularly Buy Nothing Day (the Friday after Thanksgiving), culture jamming, it campaign against big PhRMA, and its supposed commitment to media democracy. Claiming the legacy of the Situationists and combating a social order rooted spectacle, AdBusters has formulated a charged and complex assessment of consumerism. The more I have read the magazine and its affiliated productions the less pleased I am with them. In particular, its opposition to consumerism lacks reflexivity and more pays virtually no attention to the racialized history of capitalism and its implications for the Society of the Spectacle. As Haiven (2007, p. 95) notes: insofar as AdBusters takes the Spectacle for the determinant of social ill, it seems largely myopic to forms of systemic and cultural oppression to which the Situationists were at least a bit more attentive. The way consumer culture is shaped by (and shapes) class, race, gender, sexuality, and other modalities and hierarchies of power within Western society is generally ignored or dramatically simplified by AdBusters. Their blanket condemnation of consumerism without considering how it is mediated, attenuated, and defined within social structures of power (and people’s and social movements’ responses to those structures) not only makes AdBusters largely unable to comprehend the contemporary perpetuity and permutations of racism or sexism, but also tacitly helps naturalize the neoliberal dogma that the playing field is now ‘‘level’’ for all groups.

Indeed, what AdBusters has yet to grasp is the importance of commodity of racism and the centrality of struggles against it to contemporary identity politics and freedom struggles. Importantly, for me, my encounter with AdBusters and political consumerism occurred against the backdrop of ongoing work against anti-Indian racism, inquiries that underscored the ways in which society of the spectacle works through distraction and diversions, offering escape attempts simultaneously dependent on difference and the erasure of its entanglements with power (see King, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008). Studying exhibitionary practices and performative repertoires, especially Native American Mascots, illuminates on the key lacuna in much politicized consumption practiced in predominantly white cosmopolitan spaces: it too is about getting outside, forgetting context, claiming a false location. Indeed, although intent to trouble consumerism, what such efforts have tended to take for granted is the settled nature of the settler state. The alter/native paths of escapes through and engagements with commodification, colonization, and racialization can be seen quite clearly in the development and marketing of a new line of beauty projects by

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Aveda, a subdivision of Estee Lauder. Once again it is soap, or, perhaps better named in their late capitalist packaging, personal care products, that reveals the contours of commodity racism. Throughout 2002 and 2003, Aveda undertook a sophisticated marketing campaign in progressive cultural, political, and health magazines like Yoga Journal, Utne Reader, and Mother Jones, promoting its Indigenoust line of hair and body cleaners. Advertisements spread across two pages combined promotional texts and inspiring tag lines (‘‘What can you do for the earth today?’’ or ‘‘Where can you find beauty in balance with nature?’’) with a series of images (e.g., an indigenous man harvesting cedar, a flower, and a butterfly superimposed on a background of a lush mountain valley). Together, word and image sought to communicate Aveda’s special commitment to the environment (‘‘protecting and preserving biodiversity,’’ ‘‘working to slow global warming,’’ and following ‘‘an ancient model for a balanced future’’), the uniqueness of its products (described as ‘‘natural,’’ ‘‘sustainable,’’ and ‘‘inspired in collaboration with indigenous Cultures’’), and the important role of consumers who one ad encourages to ‘‘help your hair and the earth.’’ Significantly, the ads represent an increasingly common re-use of cultural others to offer a pointed commentary on modern life, underscoring its antithetical relationships with the natural world, while proposing tangible, reasonable, and desirable alternatives. Less noticeable perhaps, race anchors and animates the marketing campaign. It refracts fundamental cultural categories, arguably common sense notions, like wildness, natural, harmony, and balance, through key symbols of racial difference. Aveda legitimates itself through the actions and images of Indigenous peoples. The marketing campaign hails the thoroughly (post)modern, privileged, (white) North American consumer through flattened representations of premodern, tradition bound, (brown) noble savages living throughout the Americas. Indeed, the only person to appear in ads is a native man harvesting cedar in accordance with nature and tradition. Significantly, he is juxtaposed with landscapes, crops, a flower, and a butterfly. He, like indigenous peoples generally, dwells not in the present, but in nature; free from Eurocentric values and practices, he promises alter/natives to modernity. In many ways, Aveda envisions indigenous peoples as stewards of the natural world, a familiar reincarnation of the noble savage, cut from the same cloth as the ecological Indian, who has made regular appearances in environmentalist discourses at least since the early 1970s when an advertising campaign against pollution famously presented Iron Eyes Cody shedding a tear over contaminated waterways and litter strewn fields. Finally, the Indigenoust product line

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makes indisputable claims of/on naturalness and nativeness that precede and transcend modernity. Importantly, this pattern reinforces the EuroAmerican prerogative to claim, name indigeneity. In November 2003, Aveda opted to discontinue the campaign and the products associated with it. The move came in response to concerns voiced by indigenous leaders from the Americans and Australia. In announcing the change, Dominique Consell, President of Aveda, explained in part Indigenous peoples are considered the stewards of much of the world’s biodiversity. The Aveda Indigenous line was originally introduced to connect the modern consumer to the timeless wisdom and values of indigenous peoples. Aveda’s intent was to raise awareness about the beauty of their sustainable lifestyles, and to generate funding for key indigenous programs through sales of these products. (Aveda, 2003)

The decision to end the Indigenous collection is striking on a number of level: white colonial privilege forged a glitzy advertising campaign around an imagined, generic, and branded other, who spoke back from lived contexts and embodied communities, successfully troubling the contours of commodity racism and the legacies of settler colonialism; and yet, the corporation hides behind respect, positivity and good intentions, thus erasing the purported transgression and associated harms. At first blush, the Aveda campaign may seem minor or even trivial. After all, Aveda is specialized corporation catering to narrow niche market. Moreover, despite the national scope of the campaign, it reached a relatively small number of consumers. Such a reading of the marketing campaign would be both myopic and dismissive, precisely because these advertisements direct attention to a dynamic set of racial discourses now converging around consumer culture and the possibility that these might actually open spaces within/through which to unsettle not only commodity racism, but also, its hallowed core, white power. I write and teach very much in and against this heart of whiteness. I live in a community in the Pacific Northwest built around a land grant university (a quintessential version of the Ivory Tower), the cultivation of commodities (wheat and lentils primarily), and the facts of whiteness. Like so many other college towns in rural America, farmers and scholars, longtime locals and transient transplants coexist (with more or less tension, suspicion, and misrecognition) in largely separate worlds. Together, they have created a predominantly white community, erected on tribal lands, in which whiteness remains unremarked and unremarkable (see, Bush, 2004; Hill, 1997, 2004; Morrison, 1992; Pascale, 2008; Roediger, 1991). It is a settled place, a place of settlers, where settler colonialism is a fact, forgotten by most, neither

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overtly celebrated nor sentimentally cherished. In a county (Whitman) named for a white missionary and his wife, killed in an indigenous uprising, in a region (the Palouse) that purported honors the ‘‘vanished’’ native nation (the Palus), and in a state enshrining the memory of the first president, who was not a ‘‘friend of the Indians,’’ white (settler) power is written across the landscape (King, in preparation). Beginning with industrial agriculture, it is also a place made possible, transformed into what locals like to call a paradise by commodification: the selling of stuff and the branding of self. Like many towns, it was rechristened in hopes of securing a better future, named anew for industrialist George Pullman. Despite their great hopes, the town fathers did not secure a prominent place on the growing rail network, but fireworks for the annual Independence Day celebration. In many respects, naming itself for the industrialist not only inscribed the bonds between commodification and racism on the map, but also (and quite ironically) pathways toward their decoupling. Although perhaps better remember for his technological innovations and utopian designs, ‘‘his’’ porters arguably merit greater attention (Tye, 2004). In the wake of Reconstruction, Pullman consciously hired former slaves, believing them to be more servile, and put them to work in a social world defined by pronounced inequality and legalized segregation. In a very real sense, Pullman, or better said Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the 16th president, who took over operations of the company, re-enslaved African American workers after emancipation. Although the logics of Jim Crow proved fundamental to this, so too were Pullman’s efforts to rebrand the former slaves. He not only dressed them uniformly and subjected them to a rigorous disciplinary regime, offering a singular template for (inter)action in the white spaces of his luxury train cars, but also insisted that each porter be referred to as ‘‘George.’’ Interchangeable ciphers, they quickly became integral to the marketing of the Pullman’s enterprises and the experiences it promised: commodified signs in the emerging brand. It would be a misreading of the Pullman porter, however, to merely stress constraint, oppression, and white power. In the social milieu of postReconstruction USA, the job opened a world of opportunities and proved fundamental to the rise of a middle class in Black America (Tye, 2004). Moreover, porters were crucial to articulating a politics of respectability among and claims of dignity, humanity, and equality by African Americans. They were a cornerstone to resistance and uplifting, forging a foundation for Black and labor protest (Bates, 2000). These accounts of exclusion and exploitation, as well as empowerment and emancipation, remain unheard (by most), held under erasure by white

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narratives of community history and their connection to the larger myths of settler-national memory. Commodity racism, from the start, has proved central to the silencing of dissent and alter/natives and he promulgation of collective fantasies of power, history, and possibility. Although arguably one of the more prominent and certainly most profitable intersections of commercial cultural and racial discourses, video games have received surprising little attention (but see Leonard, 2003, 2005, 2006a, 2006b). In both mainstream and extreme forms – think the Grand Theft Auto franchise and the first person shooter Border Patrol respectively – this new medium works to stabilize whiteness, relying on narrative drifts, fixed differences, and desire cliche´s to construct interactive and entertaining spaces of play. Centered on (disturbing) pleasures – sex, violence, hypermasculinity – video games ease the unquestioned reinscription of overlapping racial ideologies, no less than the hierarchies they reflect and reproduce, whereas excusing such iterations as fun not intend to be taken to seriously or meant to cause harm. The reception of Gun provides a vivid illustration of the established racial facts of video gaming, the rhetorical maneuvers demanded of critiques intent to politicize consumption of it, and the manner in which producers and players work to contain such unsettling challenges. Activision released Gun in early 2006. With a tagline of ‘‘experience the brutality, greed and lust that was the Wild West,’’ the video game broke with many other titles on the market, leaving behind the commonplace virtual geographies of a gang-infested ghettocentric imagination, and the foreign theaters of war, to reimagine the ‘‘western frontier.’’ In a world without laws or respect for life, Colton White, following the murder of his father, undertakes a journey in which he ‘‘straddles the line between good and evil in a showdown against corrupt lawmen, a murderous preacher, renegade Army, psychopaths, merciless outlaws, and relentless warring tribes.’’ Though the game’s instructions highlight a myriad of evil doers, or individuals who provoke violence from the otherwise peaceful mountain man, Gun’s narrative and visual representation make clear that savageIndians (and animals as well) are the most violent, constant, and unabated threat to peace, democracy, and white masculinity. Importantly, because players play Colton, they simultaneously center the action and activate history, while defending civilization from wildness, treachery, and savagery. The game’s narrative and representational focus on the conquest of ‘‘savage’’ indigenous populations and the goodness of European imperialism is established from the game’s initial moments. Colton White’s ancestors are traveling on horseback somewhere in the ‘‘New World.’’ With one

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holding a cross in hand, it clear that they are missionaries, spreading God’s word throughout these ‘‘savage lands.’’ Subsequently, the members of the expedition including Colton’s relative, are viciously murdered by a group of Indian warriors, stereotypically imagined as savages who attack without cause or concern for human life. Even as the priest holds his cross the group of indigenous fighters, almost pleading for redemption and the sparring of his life, they beat and ultimately kill him, leaving the cross unattended on the land. Here, the game positions the white player/protagonist as the victims of unprovoked violence, inverting historical relations, while erasing contemporary connections and culpability. The game jumps ahead three hundred years, where Ned White is seen teaching his son, Colton, the needed skills to survive the dangers presented by the frontier. At first honing gun and knife skills by killing buffalos as well as wolves and other threatening animals, proficiency and the death of his father forces Colton to confront the greatest threat of all: Apache Indians. The game’s first mission takes Colton to Dodge City, where he is instructed to kill a group of Apache Indians, who are determined to destroy a bridge that leads the railroad through their land. The benevolence of the mission not only rests with Colton’s bravery against the Apaches, taking on and killing many dozens of screaming Indians, who wildly run around, don stereotypical war paint and warrior garb, and use both tomahawks and arrowheads, some of which are on fire, but it also can be found in his determination to protect ‘‘the Chinamen’’ and ‘‘the coolies,’’ who are building the bridge. Without Colton their lives would be in jeopardy as would the future of the good, law-abiding settlers of Dodge City. The game clearly imagines Native Americans as savage warriors, screaming throughout the game, as a sign of both an animal instinct and a determination to kill. Although, it should be mention that when Colton does take an Apache hostage, in preparation of execution, an Apache will say, in the calmest possible voice, ‘‘Let me go.’’ Through the course of the game, Colton is instructed to not only slaughter (and yes this is the term used in the game), but also to scalp those Apaches he has skilled using a ‘‘scalping knife’’ purchased at the local store. Moreover, during those missions where slaughtering Apaches constitutes the goal of the mission (you complete it and unlock achievements when all are killed), Colton can be heard expressing regret or outrage at letting some ‘‘injuns’’ escape the only things he can trust: his gun. The game’s official strategy guide even makes light of the game’s bloodshed and virtual reenactment of genocide, describing one instance where Colton saves a few ‘‘injuns’’ from a train as ‘‘Karmic cleansing.’’

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In completing the mission through not slaughter Indians, but scalping them as well, Gun not only invoke the ubiquitous sincere fictions of Native American savagery and a benevolent American conquest that have long guided national mythology, but also imagines the conquest as a site of masculine pleasure, for both Colton and the game’s players, the game offers a powerful message regarding war and conquest. In another instance, Jenny, a prostitute, who provides guidance and sexual gratification to Colton, reminds him of the responsibility of a white masculine imperialistic project: to protect women and nation. She tells Colton as they prepare to travel through Apache lands, to ‘‘please promise me you’ll put a bullet in my head before THEY ever have their way with me.’’ Securing the uneasy borders of the frontier, here, not only reinforces racial, gendered, and sexual hierarchies, but it also clears a space for the allegorical story, where the wild west stands in for the Middle East, a story about a ‘‘new world order’’ imperiled by inhuman savagery that must be stopped for civilization to thrive on the frontier and closer to home. Almost immediately after the release of Gun, Native American activists and their allies used the internet to launch an open challenge to the video game and its treatment of indigenous peoples. Though online chat rooms and forums were abuzz with the heinousness of the new title, the Association for American Indian Development called for a boycott of Activision. Understanding the cultural work of play, they outlined a powerful critique. To begin, they noted that the game contained ‘‘derogatory, harmful, and inaccurate depictions of American Indians,’’ even as the game and corporation appeared unaware of contemporary Native Americans, many of whom play video games. Worse, they asserted, Gun encouraged players to kill indigenous peoples, rewarding them for their violence and brutality, while silently reiterating genocidal actions against Native Nations. The antiIndian racism central to the game, moreover, was according to the Association for American Indian Development offered a sad commentary on the plight and struggle of indigenous peoples, precisely because Activision would not make a game in which ‘‘African Americans, Irish, Mexicans, or Jews’’ were the targets of such grotesque racialized violence. In calling into question the content of Gun, online activists sought to cultivate a decolonial movement during an insecure imperial moment. Unfortunately, the prevailing cultural logic of post-civil rights America blunted their efforts, resulting in the reinforced legitimacy of national narratives and imperial ideologies. Despite the powerful challenge to colonial cliche´s marshaled in the call to boycott Activision, corporate rhetoric and public reaction worked to

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reinforce the contours of new racism, while quelling the insurgent critique of Gun. On the one hand, Activision skillfully manipulated common sense understandings of racism and realism. In its official response to the protests, the gaming corporation stated: Activision does not condone or advocate any of the atrocities that occurred in the American West during the 1800s. GUN was designed to reflect the harshness of life on the American frontier at that time y It was not Activision’s intention to offend any race or ethnic group with GUN, and we apologize to any who might have been offended by the game’s depiction of historical events y

The game is meant to be life-like and true, not politically correct. Moreover, Activision neither intended nor endorses anti-Indian racism. The apology, like so many other insincere and after-the-fact, press releases, is meant to contain the problem, which is how overly sensitive people feel in this case, whereas letting the corporation off the hook. And by all accounts, the apology worked. Sales continued virtually unabated and Activision plans to release a sequel in the coming year. On the other hand, gamers effectively policed the crisis as well. In online chat rooms and electronic forums, they invoked familiar strategies intent to erase the significance of racism and racialization, including charges of reverse racism and playing the race card and assertions meant to minimize or trivialize the critical reading of the game offered by the Association for American Indian Development and other activists. Typical of online comments were those posted by Funky: ‘‘That’ll teach Activision to make a game based on history. Now, let’s fire up some lawsuits against EA for making those awful Medal of Honor game portraying Nazis as bad people’’ (http://news.spong.com/article/9620?cb ¼ 495). Importantly, gamer discourse echoes the corporate commitment to the importance of historical realism and denial of the significance of racism – here glossed as absurdist, while comparing Indians with Nazis. Despite the failure of the boycott of Gun to pressure Activision to recall the game, it underscores the capacity of politicized consumption to disrupt the smooth contours of commodity racism, even as it also exposes and incites other racial discourses. Even as an engagement with Gun clarifies commodity racism and opposition to it now, it underscores the centrality of intertextuality and interconnectivity across media, the politicization of consumption by Native Americans and their allies, and the importance of new racism to the containment of such critiques of consumer culture.

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I endeavored here to avoid romanticizing the politicization of consumption, opting instead to think through the complex racial politics of consumer culture now. This has meant that rather champion it as a weapon of the weak, I have framed such movements as illustrative of a broader condition. In many respects, then, those who designed Gun, conceived of and marketed the Indigenous Collection for Aveda, and created Zagar and Steve, and take pleasure in them live in a moment in which the taken for granted narratives, identities, and boundaries of race and nation have come under increasingly persistent and penetrating questioning in arguably the most important and productive domain of contemporary society. What distinguish them in many ways are the strategies employed in response to this questioning: avoidance and erasure of commodity racism and its implications on the one hand and the recoding of commodity signs to restate in overt terms racialized (symbolic) violence. Ultimately, saying no through boycotts may be too simplistic for an oppositional politics concerned with commodification and racialization. Instead, perhaps something more much complex must be nurtured in the face of commodity racism now: greater media literacy and the production of creative, critical work around what remains unsettled and which prompts consumers to reflect on what they yes to in their pleasures and pursuits. The artwork of Hank Willis Thomas (2008) may be among the best illustrations of such interventions. Through his Branded and Unbranded series, Thomas forcefully reframes the place of African Americans in commercialized discourses (http://www.hankwillisthomas/portfolio.html). Here, let me dwell briefly on highlights from the former. In his branded series, Thomas interrogates the linkages between commodification, blackness and bondage, juxtaposing imagery associated with slavery in US history with contemporary advertising to spell out the ways in which black (male) bodies have been branded by whites. For instance, he plays with the familiar Absolut vodka ads, creating works in which the bottle motif appears as a window on a slave ship (‘‘Absolute No Return’’) and another (‘‘Absolut Power’’) where it is a diagram of a slave vessel filled with the bodies of slave in transit. Similarly, he disrupts the visual language of credit card marketing. On the one hand, he reworks the cards themselves: an Afro-American Express Card with the neo-classical iconography with imagery of Africans in bondage, issued to Thomas, who has been a member since 1619; and a Discover Card, colored blood red, emblazoned with historic scenes of the explorer claiming lands and people for the Spanish Crown, and issued to Christobal Colon (in good standing since 1492). Both of these examples reconnect then and now, insisting that

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the transfer of wealth occurred through the racialized exploitation of bodies and land. On the other hand, he fashions critical parodies from the fabric of recent campaigns. ‘‘Priceless #1’’ depicts a funeral scene with an array of grieving African Americans, across the photo, phrases cascade: ‘‘3-piece suit: $250’’ new socks: $2 9 mm pistol: $79 gold chain: $400 Bullet: b60 Picking out the perfect casket for your son: Priceless

Here, the campaign meant to amplify consumption by undermining it provides Thomas with a grammar and vocabulary to call into question the position and condition of African Americans in the contemporary United States. Perhaps most powerfully, Thomas has produced a series of images questioning sport (marketing), linking it quite explicitly to past forms of bondage. Both ‘‘Branded Head’’ and ‘‘Scarred Chest’’ use brand Nike’s trademarked swoosh onto anonymous body parts, drawing a clear analogy to slavery. Similarly, ‘‘NBA Trade’’ use the structure of a slave auction poster to describe the stakes of contemporary player exchanges by professional basketball teams. Finally, ‘‘Hang Time (ca. 1923)’’ features a mock up of Nike’s Air Jordan and its famous silhouetted superstar en route to a dunk hanging from a tree by a noose. The allusion could not be more stark: sport spectacle, especially marketing, visit (symbolic) violence on African Americans, policing their lives and possibilities. Of course, such amazing productions will matter only to the extent that audiences can engage them and reuses their messages in counter-hegemonic ways. Thus, it may be that end of commodity racism can only begin to be envisioned when consumers become literate and actively deploy a new language of difference, relation, and consumption.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This essay reflects a series of lectures and informal conversations with students and colleagues. Although the ‘‘Life with Zagar’’ campaign was a key inspiration, it would not have come to fruition without the encouragement of Nancy Mithlo (and her invitation to speak back East), Norman Denzin, and Michael Giaradina. I first visited some of the core

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ideas as part of a paper, ‘‘On Containment: Toward a Mediated Ethnography of the Spectacular Fictions of Indigeneity,’’ presented at the 2007 American Association annual meetings in San Jose, California. The section on Gun comes from a collaborative work in progress with David J. Leonard, presented at the 2006 American Studies Association Meetings, ‘‘Replaying Empire: Racialized Violence, Insecure Frontiers, and Displaced Terror in Contemporary Video Games.’’

REFERENCES Aveda. (2003). Aveda announces discontinuation of indigenous product collection. Available at http://aveda.aveda.com/about/press/indigenous.asp. Retrieved on 24 October 2006. Baar, A. (2006). Bud light’s odd couple. Adweek, 27 July. Available at http://www.allbusiness. com/marketing-advertising/4165681-1.html. Retrieved on 30 August. Bates, B. T. (2000). Pullman porters and the rise of protest politics in black America, 1925–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bush, M. E. L. (2004). Breaking the code of good intentions: Everyday forms of whiteness. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bud, L. (2006). Zagar’s story. Available at http://zagar.domanidev.com:8080/zagars_story/. Retrieved on May 15, 2009. Chin, E. (2007). Consumer diaries, or, autoethnography in the inverted world. Journal of Consumer Culture, 7, 335–353. Haiven, M. (2007). Privatized resistance: AdBusters and the culture of neoliberalism. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 29, 85–110. Hill, M. (1997). Whiteness: A critical reader. New York: New York University Press. Hill, M. (2004). After whiteness: Unmaking an American majority. New York: New York University Press. Jacobsen, E., & Dulsrud, A. (2007). Will consumers save the world? The framing of political consumerism. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 20(5), 469–482. Johnston, J. (2008). The citizen-consumer hybrid: ideological tensions and the case of whole foods market. Theory and Society, 37(3), 229–270. King, C. R. (1996). Surrounded by Indians: The exhibition of Comanche and the predicaments of representing native American history. Public Historian, 18(4), 37–51. King, C. R. (1998). Colonial discourses, collective memories, and the exhibition of native American cultures and histories in the contemporary United States. New York: Garland Publishing. King, C. R. (2000). Fighting spirits: The racial politics of sports Mascots. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 3, 282–304. King, C. R. (2001). Uneasy Indians: Creating and contesting native American Mascots at Marquette University. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: The native American Mascot controversy (pp. 281–303). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. King, C. R. (2002). Defensive dialogues: Native American Mascots, anti-Indianism, and educational institutions. Studies in Media and Information Literacy Education, 2(1). Available at http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/h0wn53167646u075/?p=3eb0d 6a34855492496b4f03b4a9d5aeb&pi=0

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King, C. R. (2006). On being a warrior: Race, gender, and American Indian imagery in sport. International Journal of the History of Sport, 23(2), 313–329. King, C. R. (2008). Teaching intolerance: Anti-Indian imagery, racial politics, and (anti) racist pedagogy. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 30(5), 420–436. King, C. R. (in preparation). The place of white power. Manuscript, author’s files. Leonard, D. J. (2003). ‘Live in Your World, Play in Ours’: Race, video games, and consuming the other. Studies in Media and Information Literacy Education, 3(4). Available at http:// www.utpjournals.com/simile/issue12/leonardX1.html Leonard, D. J. (2005). To the white extreme: Conquering athletic space, white manhood and racing virtual reality. In: N. Garrelts (Ed.), Digital gameplay: Essays on the nexus of game and gamer (pp. 110–129). Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Leonard, D. J. (2006a). Not a hater, just keepin it real: The importance of race and gender based game studies. Games and Culture, 1(1), 83–88. Leonard, D. J. (2006b). Virtual gangstas, coming to suburban house near you: Demonization, commodification and policing blackness. In: N. Garrelts (Ed.), Meaning and culture of grand theft auto: Critical essays (pp. 49–69). Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. Micheletti, M. (2003). Political virtue and shopping: Individuals, consumerism, and collective action. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Micheletti, M., Føllesdal, A., & Stolle, D. (Eds). (2004). Politics, products, and markets: Exploring political consumerism past and present. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pascale, C-M. (2008). The specter of whiteness. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 30, 167–182. Roediger, D. R. (1991). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class. New York: Verso. Schmidt, R. (2006). Racist ads feature ignorant Indian. Indian Country Today, August 25. Available at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/28155639.html. Retrieved on September 1, 2006. Thomas, H. W. (2008). Pitch blackness: Pitch blackness. New York: Aperture. Tye, L. (2004). Rising from the rails: Pullman porters and the making of the black middle class. New York: Henry Holt.

PART III PETER M. HALL LECTURE SERIES

INTRODUCTION TO DAVID ALTHEIDE’S TALK: ‘‘TERRORISM AND PROPAGANDA’’ Susan Stall Before I begin, I want to recognize and thank Sarina Chen, who has been the quiet muscle power who pulled this exciting plenary session together. [Stand] – and say how much I have enjoyed our e-mail exchanges over the last year. I would like to say what an honor it is to have David Altheide with us this afternoon – and how appropriate. When I developed the Midwest Sociological Society’s (MSS) conference theme Making Sociology More Public for this – our 70th annual MSS meeting – I knew that an examination of the media needed to play a featured role at this conference. Needless to say, I was extremely excited when I learned that David Altheide had agreed to be this year’s Peter M. Hall Lecturer – no one could have selected a better Plenary Speaker to begin this conference and to provide relevant substance for our conference theme. In examining the themes in David’s presentation today, ‘‘Terrorism and Propaganda,’’ I was reminded of my own experience of 9/11 2001. I was in a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) plane readying to depart from Copenhagen to the United States after attending a 5-day conference on Community Development. Our takeoff was interrupted by an SAS pilot who announced, ‘‘I have some disturbing news – it seems unbelievable, but we are being told that a plane has just struck the World Trade Center y We will share with

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you everything we know as quickly as we learn it.’’ A short time, later the pilot returned to inform us of the second devastating hit, but this was followed by a voice of calm reason from the cockpit, ‘‘Of course you are free to depart the plane, but if you remain on the plane, and stay together, we can assure you that we will take care of you.’’ A few people darted off the plane, but most of us elected to stay together. True to their promise, SAS ended up taking care of us for a whole week, housing and feeding us at their own expense. We spent the week, several hundreds of us, sharing stories and getting to know one another. This was in stark contrast to passengers who had flown to Europe on U.S. carriers and who basically had to fend for themselves until their round trip return was secured. This experience has shaped my expectations for a proper public response to a crisis that threatens our security. Might not building on our inter-connectedness and shared experiences provide a better protection against invasion then nurturing individualism and feeding the production of fear? Our speaker today, David Altheide, will explain how the media uses ‘‘fear’’ to catch our attention and how the creation of a ‘‘fear system’’ became convincingly linked to terrorism. We are benefiting from over 17 years of David’s careful sociological analyses of newspaper and television coverage of crime (e.g., the war on drugs) to the more recent ‘‘war on terror.’’ In his role as a public sociologist, David unmasks the sources, the focus, and the language of the news media, to help us make sense of the fact that so many of our citizens came to believe that ‘‘there was a terrorist lurking around every corner.’’ We will learn how the propaganda of terror is all about fear and how the media were key contributors to shaping this ‘‘terrorism discourse.’’ Finally, with David’s help, we will explore the increased importance of a critically informed understanding of the social construction of terror to challenge the current ‘‘politics of fear.’’

TERRORISM AND PROPAGANDA$ David L. Altheide Some items from popular culture narratives: 1. Between 2001 and 2008, the Congress of the United States and most of the nation’s news organizations were complicit in the Bush administration’s malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance – and lies – in carrying out two wars and draconian limitations on civil liberties, which resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of lives, cost billions of dollars, lost irreparable global good will, and contributed to a recession. Congress did not hold investigative hearings, censor, or bring articles of impeachment against an administration that misled the American people and the world. 2. On February 14, 2008, pitcher Roger Clemens and several others were called before a Congressional panel, described as ‘‘a dramatic showdown,’’ to look into charges of steroid and other drug use. One congressman said, ‘‘It’s hard to believe you, sir.’’ Front page photos and reports were accompanied by network news headlines for several days. (An Arizona sportswriter commented on the emphasis that baseball was receiving compared to the war.) 3. Millions of Americans still believed in 2007 that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, whereas many fellow citizens cited evidence that the administration was responsible and was covering up the conspiracy. $

The Peter M. Hall Lecture, presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society, St. Louis, MO, March 27–29, 2008.

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I want to tell a sociological story about these related events, which were constituted and shaped by the mass media, as political performances took into account relevant audiences’ expectations. This requires unpacking the communication context and process used in defining situations and constructing social reality to clarify the how the mass media – including the Internet – contributed to new propaganda that reflected and shaped two narratives. But first, a little history. In November 2001, I was honored to be asked to contribute to a session of the National Communication Association dedicated to Peter Hall’s immense sociological contributions. I struggled with that task and elected to use Peter’s work on the negotiated order, meso-structure, and meta-power as a way of making sociological sense of the quick passage of a major policy change brought about by the Congressional approval of an ‘‘anti-terrorism’’ bill (HR 3162), which foreshadowed major fissures in civil rights, the rule of law, and an accelerated decline of the United States of America as a moral leader. That essay, ‘‘Communication as Power’’(Altheide, 2003), was published, but the events under consideration were not completed. In Part I, I attempt to finish that project in this chapter by discussing how propaganda and terrorism were joined through fear in constructing a major cultural narrative, and then, in a brief ‘‘Part II,’’ discuss how counternarratives to the dominant propaganda also strive to be coherent and keep symbolic boundaries.

PART I Propaganda in Perspective I will suggest two things about propaganda: First, that the propaganda campaign was successful because of ‘‘new propaganda’’ akin to ‘‘public diplomacy’’ that was used ‘‘against’’ other countries, but it was turned on citizens of the United States; Second, that propaganda narratives both ‘‘pro’’ and ‘‘con’’ – in our case, the Bush Administration and an opposing view such as 9/11 Truth – not only distort reality, but are being shaped by new information technologies, for example, videos and the Internet, which play off members’ experience with popular culture and entertainment media, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, promoting sub-plots that reaffirm the dominant narrative and counter-narrative. Missing, as usual, is the sociological narrative, about how reality gets constructed through symbolic meanings that are routinized and flow into the culture stream of myth and ‘‘what everyone knows.’’ I will try to tell that, too.

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All politicians are propagandists, with varying media and performance skills. But, performance it is. Major political actors, like Blumberg’s (Blumberg, 1967) prosecutors and defense attorneys, are involved in a confidence game and manipulate truth and reality for strategic purposes. And like Blumberg’s ‘‘officers of the court,’’ politicians have common investments in the institutions that give them identity and authority to bless or burn. One of their key stages involves the mass media forums. Congress, for example, plays to its various audiences, albeit with varying skills. Always mindful of the audience and implications of a ‘‘bad review,’’ they tend to vote along safe party lines – often drawn by big spending lobbyists – and when that is not safe, will cast the emotional vote, to show their basic values and support as ‘‘good Americans.’’ Selected votes and foci involving the Iraq War illustrate the point. Only one Senator (Feingold, Wisconsin) opposed HR 3162 (‘‘Homeland Security Bill’’) noted earlier, although other politicians would offer accounts about the meanings of ‘‘my vote’’ over the next 5 years. This strategy reflects emerging information technologies, especially 24-hour news on ‘‘cable,’’ which permits assertions, denials, clarifications, and rarely, confrontations over lies. Thus, the political and propaganda logic in vogue is based on media logic. A key aspect of media logic is the emergence of ‘‘new propaganda’’ and information control, also referred to as total information dominance by some scholars (Kamalipour & Snow, 2004). Akin to bureaucratic propaganda (Altheide & Johnson, 1980), it is somewhat different, the emphasis is on broad ranging promotional information. New propaganda goes beyond simply being ‘‘on message’’ for particular tasks or audiences, but rather, is pervasive, repetitive and overlapping symbolic messages, including images, across various media, cross-cutting formats, and connecting types of genres and programs, for example, news, entertainment, marketing, and in general, popular culture. Largely developed during the Cold War as another weapon in the global battle for political allegiance, this approach has been extended to other cultures – especially our enemies – and is referred to as ‘‘public diplomacy,’’ which has several definitions, but this one by the United States Information Agency (USIA, June 1997) will suffice: ‘‘Public Diplomacy seeks to promote the national interest of the United States through understanding, informing and influencing foreign audiences.’’ Established as a better alternative to conventional propaganda, public diplomacy was heralded as a way of letting other nations experience the broad-based truth about the United States of America, through non-governmental organizations, cultural exchanges, business, and of course, other popular culture. Even individuals of the stature of Edward

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R. Murrow worked for it and through it. He stated, as head of the USIA in 1963: American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. (http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/1.htm# propaganda)

My historically minded readers will recall that 1963 was about the time that the United States was already deeply embroiled in massive deceptions in Indochina. So my point is simply that communication was seen as more strategic, and perhaps more believable than conventional propaganda, for example, ‘‘The Enemy is Evil,’’ which is still in vogue, but not as effective as more carefully ‘‘spun’’ sugar about U.S. goodness, fairness, and virtue. Nancy Snow, who became very critical of U.S. foreign policy (Kamalipour & Snow, 2004), worked for the USIA. A crucial part of the US foreign policy apparatus, USIA likes to call its particular branch of foreign affairs public diplomacy, a euphemism for propaganda. The encyclopedia definition of the latter term is instruments of psychological warfare aimed at influencing the actions of human beings in ways that are compatible with the national interest objectives of the purveying state. But USIA prefers the euphemism, because it doesn’t want the US public to think that its government actively engages in psychological warfare activities, and because, among the general public, propaganda is a pejorative catch-all for negative and offensive manipulation. (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/ archives/27c/553.html) [My emphasis]

Public diplomacy was not working well in Arab countries, especially when alternative media sources such as al Jazeera were broadcasting counterpropaganda about U.S. atrocities against civilian populations. To counter these ‘‘distorted views,’’ ‘‘real fake news’’ was created by public relations people in the field, but that also became known. Even if successful, that would not have been enough to neutralize the images of torture, humiliation, and sado-masochism from Abu Ghraib prison. New technology (e.g., cell phones with cameras, digital cameras) was too enticing for the participants to not record activities and to promote identity – either for or against the practices – by taking photos that were eventually leaked to the press. The soldiers had fun, the world was shocked, Muslims were outraged, and even the Israeli Massad suggested that they would not do such things because of the rage and resistance it engendered. Congress looked into it; was satisfied, along party lines, that it was being dealt with; Congress also looked into torture, and bantered with administration officials about ‘‘waterboarding’’ for some 3 years, while permitting public and secret prisons to continue operating.

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Another example was the most egregious policy of ‘‘extreme rendition,’’ or the CIA kidnapping of suspects, who would be taken to ‘‘friendly’’ countries (e.g., Egypt) and tortured. But wait, the shock was not so strong as, say, baseball players cheating. Notwithstanding that the Italian government issued warrants for 22 CIA agents, these gross violations of international law and human rights did not warrant the kind of attention that Roger Clemens received for allegedly shooting steroids. The political campaign for the next election continued. Speaker of the House Pelosi focused on the Democrats winning the next election, and opined – along with others – that impeachment proceedings would rally the opposition and could cost the election. This is public diplomacy. Thus, the great Murrow had it wrong: Governing in a postmodern world requires neither truth nor credibility; entertainment and perceptions about truth matter, or as comedian Steven Colbert would say, ‘‘Truthiness,’’ what one’s ‘‘gut’’ says is truthful. Above all, it matters how truth appears. This is where fear comes into play. Mass media entertainment formats contribute to meta-power, another Peter Hall term that refers to the shaping of social relationships, social structures, and situations by altering the matrix of possibilities and orientations within which social action occurs. (As Spencer Cahill suggested, meta-power is about the ability to control the games that others must play.) Our media age, especially with the new media, such as the Internet, trades on truthiness at the expense of critical thinking and accountability; there is no one ‘‘authorized’’ to warrant validation of one’s assertions, beliefs, and attendant actions. Authority is not just decentered; it is explicitly constituted by the technology and formats that carry it. Check it out; try Googling your questions! Power is enacted through communication. Today that is captured by the ‘‘War on terror.’’ The propaganda of terror is all about fear. It is also about consuming things, keeping up appearances, and staying strong, not repeating prior mistakes of ‘‘cutting and running,’’ and ‘‘supporting our troops,’’ honoring ‘‘fallen heroes,’’ and not letting others ‘‘sacrifice in vain.’’ The propaganda trades on audience members’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences with various sources of fear, including crime, but mainly it trades on mass media reports about threat and danger that have pervaded news and entertainment fare for decades. I argue that the propaganda of fear that has pervaded our country for the last 6 years – ostensibly about ‘‘terrorism’’ – is actually a continuation of several decades of crime control, and ultimately social control. Much of this has been systematically communicated through the mass media entertainment formats. And a staple of that format is fear.

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These programs have been fairly consistent, especially the dominant narrative: There is danger everywhere and it looks like crime (e.g., drugs, gangs, random killings, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.). Formal agents of social control (FASC) can save you, but they have to contend with courts and ‘‘technicalities’’ (e.g., illegal search and seizure, entrapment, and related civil rights). Still, trust them/us. Extensive study of news reports and entertainment programs suggests that fear expanded greatly and moved from being an emotion to a communication style, or discourse of fear that may be defined as the pervasive communication, symbolic awareness, and expectation that danger and risk are a central feature of the effective environment. The word itself increased by several hundred percent in news reports from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Fear came to be closely linked with crime, drugs, gangs, immigrants, and after the horrendous ‘‘Columbine’’ school shootings, fear became even more closely linked with schools and children. This was part of the context for the attacks of 9/11, which were quickly folded into it, except the language quickly shifted from crime to ‘‘war.’’ The playing to fear continued into 2008, when President Bush argued that the House of Representatives should reauthorize the administration’s national security act that permitted blanket communication surveillance, without even the most perfunctory checking with a special court that was created three decades ago under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. According to Mr. Bush, if this authorization was not extended: ‘‘At this moment,’’ he said, ‘‘somewhere in the world terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison’’. (Lichtblau, 2008)

The expanded domestic surveillance program was initiated without congressional or legal approval; agents of the regime simply went to major communications company (e.g., AT&T) and asked them to provide the government access. As I noted previously, terrorism became a perspective, orientation, and a discourse for ‘‘our time,’’ the ‘‘way things are today,’’ and ‘‘how the world has changed.’’ The subsequent campaign to integrate fear into everyday life routines was consequential for public life, domestic policy, and foreign affairs (Kellner, 2003). Terrorism discourse referred to a general worldview. Terrorism defined reality, and audiences were reminded of this through repeated showings of the falling ‘‘twin towers,’’ which quickly became an icon representing constant enemies in a changed world. (As I will note a bit later, these

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buildings also became an icon for a counter-narrative of alleged government deceit, indeed, culpability, if not the actual planning of the attacks.) The United States position extended well beyond the attacks and those who were responsible, to a redefinition of domestic and international order. Domestic life became oriented to celebrating/commemorating past terrorist acts, waiting for and anticipating the next terrorist act and taking steps to prevent it. Everyday life and language reflected terrorism (and terrorist) disclaimers (e.g., ‘‘since 9/11y,’’ ‘‘how the world has changed,’’ ‘‘in our time,’’ etc.). International order and conduct was consistent with the domestic definition of a ‘‘terrorism world,’’ as well as an expansive claim that the ‘‘new world’’ was governed by evil terrorists rather than political gamesmanship. Good and evil turned on terrorism. International borders, treaties, and even U. S. constitutional rights were mere symbols that could detract from the single most threat to civilization and ‘‘good.’’ Such evil was to be feared and constantly attacked. To be against terrorism and all that it entailed was a mark of legitimacy and membership that would be demonstrated in various ways. Using similar symbols and expressing opposition to terrorism promoted communalism by putting the good of the citizenry over any group or individual (Cerulo, 2002). Fear Supports Terrorism as a Condition Fear played an important role in the social construction of terrorism. The meaning of the attacks was constructed from the context of previous domestic and international events, and especially well established cultural narratives surrounding fear, justifying it, and the place of fear in the lives of many citizens. During the critical 8-month period between the 9/11 attacks and the U. S. invasion of Iraq, the American news media essentially repeated administration claims about terrorism and Iraq’s impending nuclear capacity (MacArthur, 2003). Rarely has television functioned so poorly in an era of crisis, generating more heat than light; more sound, fury, and spectacle than understanding; and more blatantly grotesque partisanship for the Bush administration than genuinely democratic debate over what options the country and the world faced in the confrontation with terrorism (Kellner, 2003, p. 69). With a few exceptions, most of the criticism was against the detractors. Academics and other critics were targeted for their critical comments, even though they were not well publicized. One non-profit group, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (one founding member is Lynn Cheney,

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wife of Vice President Cheney) posted a web page accusing dozens of scholars, students, and a university president of unpatriotic behavior, accusing them of being ‘‘the weak link in America’s response to the attacky’’ and for invoking ‘‘tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil’’ (The Arizona Republic, November 24, 2001, p. A11). Consumption and Giving Were Joined Symbolically with Terrorism Unlike reactions to previous ‘‘external attacks’’ (e.g., ‘‘Pearl Harbor’’) that stressed conservation, personal sacrifice, and commitment, a prevailing theme of consumption-as-character and financial contributions as commitment and support pervaded mass media messages surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Advertising and programming served to normalize the terrorist condition. The Absence of a Clear Target for Reprisals Contributed to the Construction of Broad Symbolic Enemies and Goals Referred to as ‘‘Terrorism’’ The politics of fear was central to commensuration practices in forging a national identity. This was accomplished symbolically by expanding the tragic events into an interpretive scheme that connected attacks with renewal, revenge, and deference to leaders who would attach the enemy and save us from other attacks. The communal reaction was informed by drawing on national experiences of fear, consumption, and the role of national leadership in molding a response that would also constitute and justify future actions and relationships between nations, state control, and citizens. Patriotism was connected with an expansive fear of terrorism and enemies of the United States. The term terrorism was used to encompass an idea, a tactic or method, and ultimately a condition of the world. The waging of the ‘‘War on Terrorism’’ focused on the ‘‘idea’’ and ‘‘the method’’ depending on the context of discussion and justification. The very broad definition of terrorism served the central authorities’ purposes while also justifying action of others (e.g., Israel) in their own conflicts (Robin, 2002). The mass media were key contributors. Numerous public opinion polls indicated that audiences were influenced by news media reports about the attacks as well as the interpretations of the causes, the culprits, and ultimately, the support for various U. S. military actions. For example, one study of the perceptions and knowledge of audiences, and their primary source of news found that gross misperceptions of key facts were related to support of the war with Iraq.

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Terrorism and the Drug War The drug war and ongoing concerns with crime contributed to the expansion of fear with terrorism. Messages demonizing Osama bin Laden, his Taliban supporters, and ‘‘Islamic extremists’’ linked these suspects with the destructive clout of illegal drugs and especially drug lords. By this I refer to the demonization of drugs/terrorists, the call for harsh measures against both, and the unanimity – especially among news media – that force was the best weapon (Dallas Morning News, March 14, 2002, KO487, reprinted in the Arizona Republic, March 14, 2002, p. A8). A $10 million ad campaign promoted the message from President Bush, ‘‘If you quit drugs, you join the first against terror in America.’’ The Expanding Definition of Terrorism Many countries supported the proposition that terrorism is a condition. Numerous ‘‘internal’’ conflicts and revolutionary movements were classified as ‘‘terrorism,’’ and any government that opposed them would, presumably, be joining the United States in its fight against global terrorism. Within a matter of days, countries dealing with revolutionary movements in their own borders (e.g., Colombia, Peru, and Israel) vowed to join the United States in its fight against terrorism (Bennett, 2001). Placing virtually all ‘‘opposition’’ forces in the terrorist camp was consistent with the militarymedia script of pervasive fear and opposition. The serious opposition that disappeared with the end of the Cold War was reconstituted worldwide as ‘‘global terrorism.’’ And it was working well. For example, in 2008, border conflicts in South America involving Colombian forces chasing rebels into Ecuador and Venezuela, which responded by mobilizing their troops, were condemned by the Organization of the American States (OAS), with the United States being the only nation that did not condemn Columbia. The Venezuelan mobilization drew a rebuke from the Bush administration, which has portrayed Colombia as an ally in need of a trade deal that has been delayed because of concerns over killings of Colombian trade union officials. ‘‘We do think it’s curious that a country such as Venezuela would be raising the specter of military action against a country who was defending itself against terrorism,’’ said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman. ‘‘I think that says a lot about Venezuela.’’ (Romero, 2008)

Casting terrorism as a condition of the world not only led to an expanded use and application of the word ‘‘terrorism’’ to a wide range of activities, it

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also contributed to associating terrorism more closely with victims and victimization. The emphasis of the coverage of 9/11 was on the commonality of the victims rather than the cause or the rationale for the attacks. The popular refrain was that all Americans were victimized by the attacks, and like the ‘‘potential victims’’ of crime featured in a decade of news reports about the crime problem, all citizens should support efforts to attack the source of fear (Garland, 2001). Terrorism became more closely linked to victimization through extensive news reporting. A study of news reports from five newspapers 18 months before 9/11 and 18 months after 9/11 showed that the terms crime, victim, and fear were joined with news reports about terrorism to construct public discourse that reflects symbolic relationships about order, danger, and threat that may be exploited by political decision-makers. Fear in headlines and terrorism in news reports greatly exceeded the increases in fear and crime. Four of the five newspapers (the exception was The Washington Post) increased the linkage of fear with terrorism by more than 1,000%, with the San Francisco Chronicle exceeding 4,500%, due to having published only two reports of this nature before 9/11, at Time 1. Clearly, terrorism was a relatively new and bold connection for fear. This included a few articles that were critical of the government’s use of fear to exact more social control, but the overwhelming majority demonstrated that terrorism was bonded to the discourse of fear. Victimization was not the only emerging subtext about terrorism. There was also conspiracy, grounded in numerous claims and interpretations of the collapsing towers, leading many to scan the web for alternative media sites that would provide the ‘‘truth’’ about what happened on 9/11. I now turn to this counter-narrative and how it was shaped by entertainment oriented media.

PART II News Narratives and Conspiracy The propaganda project of the Iraq War was profoundly successful, but like all such projects, it ran its course, a route largely configured by mass media formats and content. The events of 9/11 became not only part of the Bush Propaganda campaign but also the counter-narratives. Propaganda invites counter-propaganda and delegitimation. First, I give an overview of how

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propaganda can change, and second, offer a framework for understanding how some of the counter-propaganda of the Iraq War – including 9/11 Truth – is actually organized and configured by the same media logic that was the groundwork for the initial propaganda. There is a temporal boundary for event propaganda; soon the event changes, the propagandists change (leave office), claims makers may successfully promote counter-claims that receive attention (e.g., no weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and audiences may lose some of their enthusiastic support. Also, other issues are likely to arise, especially since the mass media are always open to fresh crises instilling fear, for example, immigration. Thus, in the run up to the 2008 presidential election, opinion polls suggested that voters were as concerned about undocumented workers (cast in the U.S. media as ‘‘illegal immigrants’’ or even ‘‘aliens’’) as they were Al Qaeda. The counter-propaganda to the Iraq War appears to have followed suit, although there is yet another consideration. Culture and particularly dominant narratives contextualize communication behavior and themes that resonate key points. Entertainment media in the United States, for example, include numerous renditions of counter-heroes, or rather, anti-heroes, who challenge authority, and by implication the ‘‘party line’’ about priorities, as well as some details about events. Couch, Maines, and Chen (1996) stressed that media were enduring or ephemeral, referential, or evocative. The fundamental fact of human experience is that when people communicate they construct shared experiencesyWhat is needed are transactional perspectives which can discover the current forms of communicative conduct and depict the extent and depth of influence the electronic media has had on contemporary societies. (Maines & Couch 1988, p. 6, 12)

Indeed, in the past decade, there have been several popular TV dramas that juxtapose ‘‘official’’ truth with the ‘‘real truth.’’ I will address two examples. One is the ‘‘X-Files’’ (with a forthcoming movie) that focus on corrupt officials in collusion with aliens. A special FBI team – Agents Mulder and Scully – dance through episodes of governmental lying and coverups, kidnapping, and murder, sprinkled with sexual tension. Scully, the skeptical scientist, tries to amass evidence, while her more mystical sidekick, Mulder, has the insights (partly because he had ‘‘personal’’ experience with the protagonists). Of course, the episodes show that Mulder is right. But the key point is that science is hard to please in the movie, especially when it becomes clear just how distorted science is made to appear:

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‘‘In the entertainment media, just short of sex and violence, conspiracy- mongering and paranormal fantasy sells’’ says Paul Kurtz, member of the coordinating committee for the Council for Media Integrity and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. ‘‘The X-Files taps into the fascination market, feeding on viewer gullibility. Science is portrayed as weak and critical thinking is pushed aside.’’ Magical thinking became a national pastime last summer during the mythological 50th anniversary of the crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell, New Mexico. According to a Gallup poll, 31% of Americans believed an actual alien craft had crashed in 1947. In a previous poll, 71% of Americans indicated a belief in some kind of U.S. government cover-up of UFOs. (http://csicop.org/articles/x-files-movie/)

Another very popular show is the five versions of ‘‘24,’’ or 24 hours of ‘‘real time’’ in the adventures of Counter Terrorism Agent, Jack Bauer, who battles terrorists, but must also contend with corrupt officials – including the President of the United States – who are in cahoots with evil doers. For Jack to stop the impending attacks – and he does not always succeed – it is necessary to bribe, kill, and torture – yes torture! – many suspects, including fellow agents, who are suspected of being on the dark side. The controlled psychopathology of this media hero is a fascinating topic in its own right, but that’s not my project. My project is to clarify how media logic and coherent narratives that manifest that logic, such as ‘‘24’’ and the ‘‘X files’’, contribute to ‘‘real life’’ support for conspiracy theories about events surrounding 9/11. Media logic is defined as a form of communication, and the process through which media transmit and communicate information. Elements of this form include the distinctive features of each medium, and the formats used by these media for the organization, the style in which it is presented, the focus or emphasis on particular characteristics of behavior, and the grammar of media communication (Altheide & Snow, 1979; Snow, 1983). Moreover, I will suggest that the official propaganda of an initial event becomes the foil and standpoint of ‘‘them’’ that counter-propaganda leans on for support, including scripting some details (e.g., ‘‘they said that all officials were here, but we now we know that is not true’’). One of my final observations is that narratives gain many supporters, but both are distorted, and that a third narrative, the sociological account, is not honored by anyone precisely because (in whatever other ways it may be lacking) it is not simple and consistent with media logic and the entertainment perspective. My argument is that our media culture favors coherent narratives that may, for our purposes, be encapsulated as ‘‘official’’ and ‘‘the truth.’’

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Basically, it is an account that has a simple beginning, middle, and end, with clear facts stated showing, for example, in the case of War, intentional damage was done, we were attacked, and now we must defend ourselves. Righteously. And justly. The official version is coherent, but always incomplete, and usually contains many points that are false, untrue, that are toppled from credibility with the emergence of new evidence. I must stress evidence, because, as I have attempted to clarify in a recent paper, evidence itself is subject to numerous contexts and contingencies, but I will leave that for now. The official versions – whether of the attack on Pearl Harbor in WW II, JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, the 2004 Presidential election – are generally shown to be more or less incomplete, and more or less false, and usually done to mislead the public. The accounts that follow such events are textbook cases of propaganda, that is, an evil enemy is blamed for death and damage to an innocent and righteous victim – us! Neither context, contingency, uncertainty, nor ambiguity is discussed: Reports are very coherent and scripted. Incidents that might challenge the dominant narrative are easily either dismissed or shaped with ‘‘spin’’ to be consistent with the major frame. For example, the Iraq War is cast in the major media as a legitimate affair, carried out by well-meaning and disciplined troops, who do not kill or maim unnecessarily, and operations as well-planned and rational. Very few mistakes are really made, but when they are, it might be blamed on circumstances. The deaths of two soldiers who were killed by one of their own tanks were described this way: The deaths were not a result of negligence, the investigators said. Instead, ‘‘a series of decisions and actions by both the tank crews and their command, taken collectively, fell short of the high expectations we have of our soldiers and their leaders,’’ the investigators said. (December 19, 2007–1:20PM Military says friendly fire killed Tucson soldier East Valley Tribune, p. 1, http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/104816 accessed December 20, 2007 Associated Press)

Counter narratives are also coherent, but they include a basic proposition that the government report is not only inaccurate, it is a lie, intentionally concealing information and ‘‘facts’’ to either protect some people and/or help justify an action, for example, wage war, which might otherwise not be supported. Moreover, research often uncovers that the government was culpable, that is, was directly involved in either the planning of a ‘‘precipitating event,’’ like the fictitious attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin – which helped launch the Vietnam War – or played a leading role in covering up information that would compromise or challenge the official version. Of this, there can be no doubt. This poses a paradox: Counter-narratives are

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decisive in the short-run for many audiences (but not all), but are not carried over to the next similar event, for example, a precipitating event like the 9/11 attacks, by the mass media, or to the official version of history (Zinn, 2003). Stated differently, the dominant narrative takes precedence and starts off the next round of disputes and counter-narratives. The Iraq War provides what I will call a heuristic case study of counternarratives. Within weeks after the 9/11 attacks, a small, but steadily growing body of information emerged and expanded over the next 6 years on numerous alternative media (Internet) sites that the attacks were not simply due to ‘‘blowback’’ by Al Qaeda for brutal U.S. foreign policies, particularly the Middle East, but were actually an ‘‘inside job’’ (e.g., 9/11 Truth Commission). Accounts about the nature of the ‘‘inside job’’ varied, but it was heralded as the work of a combination of CIA, Bush administration, and Israel. Although it may not be a surprise that a large percentage of the ‘‘Arab street’’ believes this, it is challenging to provide a sociological explanation of why so many Americans believe this. The extent of ‘‘skepticism’’ ranges from those who tell polsters that they do not believe that all of the facts have come out, to those who believe, that it was planned and conceived by agents of the U.S. government. Wikipedia’s summary is illustrative of the claims: Many 9/11 conspiracy theorists identify as part of the ‘‘9/11 Truth Movement,’’ and their claims often suggest that individuals in the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge[citation needed], or that the attacks were a false flag operation carried out by high-level officials in winning the allegiance of the American people in order to facilitate military spending, garner support for Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, the restriction of civil liberties, and/or a program of aggressive and profitable foreign policyy Most members of the 9/11 Truth Movement claim that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition and/or that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down. Some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon; this position is debated within the 9/11 Truth Movement, with many who believe that AA Flight 77 did crash there, but that it was allowed to crash via an effective stand down of the military. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

There are numerous 9/11 truth organizations in local communities across the United States. My interest is in the logic in use and the affinity with a coherent counter-narrative, which I argue is simpler and easier to accept than an alternative view, which is less coherent, less familiar, and ensconced in some social science concepts. The focus on counter-propaganda as coherent narratives is also relevant for understanding so-called conspiracy theories, although that is not my main concern. I clarify how popular culture intervenes and shapes actors’

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perspectives about evidence and accountability, and indeed, offers them some assurance from relevant audiences, which they are ‘‘making sense,’’ are not ‘‘crazy,’’ ‘‘paranoid,’’ etc. Some conceptual separation may be offered by delineating just a few of the characteristics of ‘‘conspiracy’’ theory. Although there is a rich literature about ‘‘conspiracy theorists’’ as paranoid, etc., several recent essays offer, in my view, more conceptually integrating analyses. Waters’ caricature of articulated counter beliefs as ‘‘ethnosociologies’’ emphasizes perspective and opposition: Whereas there are few amateur physicists or chemists in our society driving taxicabs, running elevators, and hosting radio shows, one may notice that there are many, many amateur sociologists. These individuals have ideas about why the divorce rate is high, why kids drop out of school, why the rich are rich and the poor are poor, and, most important here, why Whites have so much and Blacks have so little. The explanations or theories that these everyday people hold to make sense of their social worlds are what I call ethnosociologies. Conspiracy theories may be understood as one class of ethnosociology. They explain social misfortunes by attributing them to the deliberate, often secretly planned, actions of a particular group of people. (Waters, 1997, p. 113) [My emphasis]

Actually, with apologies to Professor Waters, there are also many amateur physicists, who contribute to numerous blogs – and/or engage in millions of conversations daily – about the true cause of the collapse of the World Trade Towers. Other scholars take an additional step and focus on those who frame conspiracy theorists as a rhetorical strategy used to discredit an opposing point of view. Husting and Orr (2007) see a labeling process at work that excludes and reframes critical arguments about power, corruption an motive, while calling into question the competence of the questioner. I suggest that popular culture and especially the kinds of programs I noted earlier (e.g., the X Files, 24, etc.) contribute to coherent counternarratives, although they certainly did not sire them. As noted, there have been many events in U.S. history, and certainly before that, which, in retrospect were conspiratorial. And mass media depictions of these events (e.g., Watergate, the Vietnam War) document the events in an entertainment format for mass consumption, which can be soon captured and summed up with ‘‘Watergate,’’ for example, which quickly became part of U.S. lexicon, for example, ‘‘gate,’’ was added to dozens of suspected corruptions and scandals (e.g., Lancegate, Milkgate, Contragate, Irangate, Spygate – NFL football ‘‘spying charges’’). Audiences can share this reproduced history through media technologies. Indeed, these days counter-narratives are offered in bits and pieces through electronic media, including the Internet,

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but also available for purchase or free distribution on CDs, DVDs, and Pod casts. I met several people, who gladly shared copies of DVDs and CDs with interested parties; indeed, one man made 100 copies of a DVD to provide to fellow workers and casual acquaintances. Meaning is provided by the visual nature of the material, along with the edited narrative joining discrete pieces together. It all fits. The mass media and popular culture contribute to the definition of situations and audience expectations and criteria for self-presentations for themselves and others. As audiences spend more time with these formats, the logic of advertising, entertainment, and popular culture becomes takenfor-granted as a ‘‘normal form’’ of communication. As Carl Couch (Couch, 1995) noted, evocative rather than referential forms of communication now dominate the meaning landscape. The referential forms fall before the electrified rolling formats that change everyday life with the look and swagger of persona, entertainment, and action. Entertainment media are evocative rather than referential, and entertainment media – including music – increasingly are visual. The challenge is to take seriously the implications of ‘‘believing is seeing’’ (rather than the converse) for social order. Visual meaning is intriguing and often convincing, especially if it is about something that we already support. Images are convincing, especially if they are placed in the context of Internet images, wherein even words are images on a screen, produced with keyboards and packaged in grammatically correct sentences. The format is truth-lending and credible, if not itself convincing; it looks right. The truth of the matter is implicit, especially when packaged in coherent narratives, authored by experts. This seems to be particularly true when the experts are scientists with Phds in physics and engineering. Audiences that share the narrative, albeit still under construction, warrant their discipline authority. Narratives move and change, and as some members either doubt or are accused of doubting part of the dominant narrative, they become suspect by others still committed to the overarching themes. The effect of the commitment to disregard any evidence that challenges the dominant narrative can be seen both within the Bush administration and the counter-propagandists, including some people affiliated with 9/11 Truth and related organizations. Thus, previous Bush stalwarts, such as Richard Clarke, who served four presidents as a counter-terrorism expert, broke ranks with the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War (see Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror) and was roundly castigated by former superiors. Relatedly, David Kubiak, an early organizer for a counter-propaganda organization, 9/11 Truth, was quoted as saying that he

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did not believe that 9/11 was an inside job, although he continued to work very diligently for full disclosure about many details of the 9/11 attacks and the government’s responses. He was vehemently criticized for breaking ranks, and one blog suggested that he was a plant to subvert the movement: First, we have proof that the ‘‘truth movement’’ in general is controlled at the highest levels by COINTELPRO forces. The single most identifiable fact of that proof is David Kubiak. The executive director of ‘‘911truth.org’’ is on record as telling the NY times that Sept 11 was not an inside job. How does an openly declared supporter of the full official story, become executive director of an organization which claims to be the umbrella movement for all those seeking the ‘‘truth’’ of the event? (http://www. veronicachapman.com/nyc911/Jones-Kubiak.htm)

Thus, truth splintered or fractured is truth broken, or false, and any who bear witness to such revisions are repulsed. One way power is manifested is by influencing the definition of a situation. Cultural logics inform this process and are therefore powerful, but we are not controlled by them, and certainly not determined, particularly when one’s effective environment contains meanings to challenge the legitimacy, veracity, and relevance of certain procedures. Resistance can follow, but it is likely to be formatted by ecologies of communication. Indeed, the contribution of expanded discourses of control to the narrowing or expansion of resistance modes remains an intriguing area of inquiry (Couch, 1995, p. 185): We must locate the modes in which believing, knowing, and their contents reciprocally define each other today, and in that way try to grasp a few of the ways believing and making people believe function in the political formations in which, within this system, the tactics made possible, by the exigencies of a position and the constraints of a history are displayed.

REFERENCES Altheide, D. L. (2003). Communication as power in Peter Hall’s work. In: K. D. Norman (Ed.), Studies in symbolic interaction. New York: Elsevier Science Ltd. Altheide, D. L., & Johnson, J. M. (1980). Bureaucratic propaganda. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media logic. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Bennett, J. (2001). Israel wants cease-fire to precede truce talks. The New York Times, September 16 p. 1. Blumberg, A. S. (1967). The practice of law as a confidence game: Organizational cooptation of a profession. Law and Society Review, 1, 15–39. Cerulo, K. A. (2002). Individualism pro tem: Reconsidering U. S. social relations. In: K. A. Cerulo (Ed.), Culture in mind: Toward a sociology of culture and cognition (pp. 135–171). New York: Routledge.

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Couch, C. (1995). Oh, what webs those phantoms spin (SSSI distinguished lecture, 1994). Symbolic Interaction, 18, 229–245. Couch, C. J., Maines, D. R., & Chen, S.-L. (1996). Information technologies and social orders. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Garland, D. (2001). The culture of control: Crime and social order in contemporary society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Husting, G., & Orr, M. (2007). Dangerous machinery: ‘‘Conspiracy Theorist’’ as a transpersonal strategy of exclusion. Symbolic Interaction, 30, 127–150. Kamalipour, Y. R., & Snow, N. (2004). War, media, and propaganda: A global perspective. Lanham, MD, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Kellner, D. (2003). From 9/11 to terror war: The dangers of the Bush legacy. Lanham, MD, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Lichtblau, E. (2008). Eavesdropping law is likely to lapse. The New York Times, February 14, p. 25. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/washington/14fisa.html?_r ¼ 1& th&emc ¼ th&oref ¼ slogin. Retrieved on February 14, 2008. MacArthur, J. R. (2003). The lies we bought: The unchallenged ‘Evidence’ for war. Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, pp. 62–63. Available at http://www.cjr.org/year/03/3/ macarthur.asp. Retrieved on May 31, 2003. Maines, D. R., & Couch, C. J. (1988). Communication and social structure. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas. Robin, C. (2002). Primal fear. Theory and Event, 5http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_ event/v005/5.4robin.html. Romero, S. (2008). Regional bloc assails incursion into Ecuador; but Colombia itself is not condemned. The International Herald Tribune, March 7, p. B2. Snow, R. P. (1983). Creating media culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Waters, A. M. (1997). Conspiracy theories as ethnosociologies: Explanation and intention in African American political culture. Journal of Black Studies, 28, 112–125. Zinn, H. (2003). A people’s history of the United States: 1492-present. New York: HarperCollins.

THERE’S OUR HITLER ENVY! ALTHEIDE’S VERSION OF FEAR IT NOW Michael A. Katovich David Altheide has provided a sociological story that may not resemble the fabled bed time stories of your youth, or even the moral parables that guide our commonsensical understanding of the everyday world. However, the story has some resemblance to Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘‘The Emperor’s Clothes,’’ especially with regard to his observation that we Americans have accepted and complied with policies, directives, and rationalizations that seemed problematic in the first place and downright odious in retrospect (see Cetola, Willer, & Macy, 2005, pp. 1010–1011). Just as Denzin (2007, pp. 449– 451) noted with regard to the ‘‘one percent doctrine’’ (if something can happen once it will therefore happen again), Altheide points out the simple fact that our fears, lacking logical premise, have instead become dressed up in vivid colors on television screens. We as citizens seem mesmerized by an apparently inevitable concept that if we fear it, it will indeed come. A few years ago Glassner (2000) discussed how fear mongers create a false logic of inevitability. Currently, Altheide extends this argument to show how such logic has become clothed in the regalia of patriotism, news void of context, and incessant anger. Altheide tells a complex story that he admits will not and maybe even cannot be grasped in its entirety, due to its complexity and attention to details most listeners and audiences care not to consider. As Max Weber

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observed, sociological stories tend to rely on and create paradoxes and the sort of evidence and empirical referents that mage contractions as much as they support rational assertions. Nevertheless, speaking for those who wish to hear the story and familiar with Altheide’s uncompromising pursuit of the truth, I am glad he keeps reminding us that to answer even the most simple question, ‘‘What’s going on?’’ we have to at least understand that it’s happening within a complex mosaic of facts, facts posing as myths, and myths posing as facts. Altheide draws on his vast expertise as a systematic researcher of media, or what he calls ‘‘media logic,’’ and his careful scholarship and reading of others who attempted to crawl into the belly of the beast to answer, ‘‘What’s going on?’’ and importantly, ‘‘Who is framing what’s going on and how is such framing possible?’’ In this particular endeavor, Altheide attempts to deconstruct a common word, propaganda, as well as one of our most treasured concepts in sociology, the definition of the situation, and create a sophisticated view of what he terms ‘‘public diplomacy,’’ or the institutionalized masquerade of making the world safe for democracy, freedom, and unfettered capitalistic transactions. Of course, when scholars and serious researchers explore any issue, the first order of business is to avoid the cliche´s and easy, glib turns of phrase that make for successful radio, television, and even newspaper accounts. Altheide reminds us of the difference between professional and amateur sociological thinking, a necessary maneuver in that, as Peter Berger (1963) reminded us sometime ago in Invitation to Sociology, anyone with any degree of social competence who navigates the social landscape is at least, a practicing sociologist. However, the amateur sociologists, Altheide reminds us, make the mistake of falling in love with immediate observations, cute phrases, and iterative analysis (aka ‘‘sound bites’’) that the professional (supposedly) disdains. With apologies to the late great Hunter S. Thompson and his alter ego, Raul Duke, who penned the famous line, ‘‘When the going gets weird the weird turn pro,’’ I note that when faced with such complex masquerades and deceptions, filtered by equally complex media technologies conveying content clad in metaphorical webs, when the going gets so weirdly complex, we all better turn pro or simply let ourselves spin in those webs. Altheide does not want to spin and he does not want us to spin. Even though Altheide warns against oversimplification, I will dare to put his focus in a simple nut and say that his presentation, as well as his numerous and impressive scholarly resume concerns itself with the nature of morality. Morality is hardly a simple concept, but I read Altheide as one of our contemporary moralists – not the evangelical, fire and brimstone, or

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religious moralist of various stocks and trades, but the thoughtful and careful student of decency. Put as plainly as possible, while trying to avoid trivializing Altheide’s cogent analysis, I read Altheide as asking, ‘‘How is human decency possible?’’ and as a corollary, ‘‘How does the quest for decency become problematic?’’ One of his most telling lines appears early on in the presentation when he asserts an ‘‘accelerated decline of the United States of America as a moral leader.’’ There are many ways to interpret such a statement – many rhetorical devices to explore – but the gist of it seems to be that we have invited the expectation that, as a technologically advanced society, we will foster change and progress that benefits populations. Instead, and one might say ‘‘business as usual,’’ we have fostered alienation in the pursuit of narrow interests. If I stopped here, we would be stuck in the tired teleological trap of asserting base motives for advancing self interests. However, Altheide does not stop here. Instead, and advancing ideas established by other symbolic interactionists, Altheide provides a distinct sociological point-of-view to read what is going on ‘‘underneath’’ a new journalistic style that he calls ‘‘post-journalism.’’ The simple and obvious development is that journalists, media producers, and moguls have become sophisticated translators of raw events, incorporating a brand of selective attention and iteration that pounds viewers into sensory submission. Key ‘‘talking points’’ enter into a stream of audio-visual consciousness so that after a time, any viewer or listener will have an entire symbolic vocabulary within ‘‘restorable reach,’’ as Schutz and Luckmann (1973) termed it, or the belief in the necessity of a war and conspiratorial theories about the manufacturing of evidence to justify war. The items, in and of themselves, can and do provide seemingly limitless streams of information and analysis emanating from televised, print, and radio discourse. Altheide, however, sees the items as epiphenomena, or perhaps as real only insofar as they represent C.W. Mills’ (1940) situated vocabularies of motive, streams of steam produced by an engine that produces symbols of evil at frantic rates. Months beofre his death and on the eve of his last published book, The Castle in the Forest, Norman Mailer (2007) compared Adolph Hitler to the Antichrist, marking him as the symmetrical end-point in the Christian narrative. We Americans have never had a Hitler, nor a Stalin, nor a Nero, nor anyone, in particular, that resembles such a contradiction to utopian ideals. In Sam Spade’s (Dashiell Hammett’s famous detective in The Maltese Falcon) words, we have all the stuff of evil but ‘‘no fall guy.’’ When reading Mailer’s description of his novel and then reading the novel itself, I thought of how we Americans have spent close to a century in desperate searches for

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‘‘fall guys’’ in the forms of inanimate objects (drugs, guns), practices (abortion), and various political leanings – communism in the 1950s, arch conservatism in the 1960s, and liberalism in the 1980s. Though Mel Brooks’ producers engaged in their own frantic search for a Hitler, American politicians, media moguls, and corporate shills have done the same, to little or no avail. Feeling ‘‘Hitler envy,’’ media producers filled print and electronic stories with various allusions to evil in the forms of boogey men out to get us regardless of ‘‘who answers the phone at 3 a.m.’’ Finally, on September 11, 2001, our Hitler arrived in the form of terroristic plots. However, even this Hitler simulacrum had some obvious flaws, not the least of which were that the alleged terrorists were not from Iraq and did not appear to be affiliated with Sadaam Hussein in any way, form, or fashion. Nevertheless, as Altheide points out, our current administration revved up a propaganda machine that would enable two things in particular: keep Americans scared to death (with continual color reminders on our TV screens of terror levels) and justify the borrowing of vast sums of money from various countries. Such moves had transparent qualities, making them seem downright naked, but they worked well enough to not only wage two wars but continue to receive enough political and financial support to keep waging, what John McCain has re-termed our new 100 year wars. The transparency of naked values became all the more clear when Paul Wolfowitz, in a 2003 interview with Vanity Fair, taking an unintentional cue from Mills’ notion of vocabularies of motive, maintained that ‘‘The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.’’ I know this may seem an odd placement for a movie reference, especially a reference to a comedy, but when reading Altheide, I was reminded of a scene in Woody Allen’s Play it Again Sam. Allen, playing his usual (at the time) schlep, tries to seduce Diane Keaton’s character with the help of his fantasy alter-ego, Humphrey Bogart, who is coaching Allen through the seduction process. ‘‘Tell her you’ve seen a lot of dames in your life,’’ Bogie says, ‘‘but you’re something special.’’ ‘‘She’ll never believe that,’’ says Allen. ‘‘Tell her!’’ demands Bogie. Allen gives her the line and she responds immediately with an enthusiastic, ‘‘Really?’’ Allen then turns to Bogie and says, ‘‘she bought it!’’ Altheide seems to be asking how in the name of human decency and all that we as Americans supposedly stand for, can we have bought the line that we are at war to conquer evildoers, save the world from tyranny, and rid the nation of weapons of mass destruction? Are we as Americans so desperate

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for some sort of identification that we will buy any line that gives us an illusion of being the good superpower that will rid the world of diabolical foes? This sort of comic book thinking, reflected in the polls that Altheide cites, maintains that most Americans have few reservations about whatever it is our country is doing overseas and even at home as long as patriotic sentiments prevail over nonpatriotic hostile forces. However, Altheide may want to reconsider the polls he cites – the socalled objective evidence measuring perceptions of news audiences. In keeping with Altheide’s consistent focus on television as a filter of fear and unabashed medium of stereotypical regurgitation, these polls may be no more than ‘‘pop quizzes’’ given to viewers, testing them, a la Garfinkel (1967) to ‘‘fill in’’ content that more or less correlates with an iterative barrage of images out-of-context. Mark Crispin-Miller (1988) referred to such filling in as self-referential discourse and asserted that news (and other TV) content becomes synchronized within a landscape of repetitive tropes, metaphors, and other rhetorical devices. Being informed or being ignorant of ‘events’’ does not mean what a previous generation assumed it meant – that one ‘‘knew’’ or ‘‘did not know’’ what was going on in the context of world history. One is informed today on-the-spot with images and information that goes through a repetitive span before being replaced by other images, sounds, and ‘‘bites.’’ What remains constant, independent of the Madison Avenue-like barrage attendant with obvious Freudian and post-Freudian symbolism is the raw emotion of fear. In a strange way, fear becomes what G.H. Mead (1934) would term our mind – it is the stable adjustment to emergent and unexpected stimuli. One who does not fear may not be, necessarily, out of one’s mind, but he or she is, as Gregory Stone (1962) implied, out of our minds. We simply cannot imagine responses to stimuli that lack fear – or at least, that lack some rhetoric of fear. Altheide seems to be telling us that we no longer ‘‘merely’’ live in a culture of fear; such a culture implies rules and norms that we can manage, construct, reconstruct, and transform. Instead, we connect to others via the mind of fear, what Couch (1989) termed ‘‘charismatic transactions,’’ or the co-acknowledgement of negative standpoints that elicit excitement, devotion, and shared foci. The ‘‘reasonable’’ soul simply does not have a chance within this mind set. He/she becomes cast out as a social object, unable to communicate within an evocative vocabulary of panic. Albert Camus once wrote that ‘‘nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.’’ In Altheide’s world America has based policies on fear without engendering corresponding respect. In that vein, we may be more pathetic than despicable. I read Altheide and others who have made such a

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strong impression on students of media and ask, as I often do, ‘‘what can be done?’’ Just as often, I feel a numbing sense of ignorance, neither knowing nor imagining a step in any direction. I am getting to a point in which Bob Dylan sang, ‘‘It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.’’ Until then, I wonder if, as in Anderson’s tale, a young person who has not yet been socialized into a world of fear might cry out, ‘‘Look at that silly naked man.’’ He or she may do so. If such a child emerges, he/she will not own a cell phone, a blackberry, or watch TV. He/she will also have read David Altheide.

REFERENCES Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Cetola, D., Willer, R., & Macy, M. (2005). The emperor’s dilemma: A computational model of self-enforcing norms. American Journal of Sociology, 110, 1009–1040. Crispin-Miller, M. (1988). Boxed in: The culture of TV. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Couch, C. J. (1989). From hell to utopia and back to hell. Symbolic Interaction, 12, 265–279. Denzin, N. K. (2007). The secret downing street memo, the one percent doctrine, and the politics of truth: A performance text. Symbolic Interaction, 30, 447–461. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Glassner, B. (2000). The culture of fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things. New York: Basic Books. Mailer, N. (2007). The castle in the forest. London: Little-Brown. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mills, C. W. (1940). Situated actions and vocabularies of motive. American Sociological Review, 5, 904–913. Schutz, A., & Luckmann, D. (1973). The structures of the life world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Stone, G. P. (1962). Appearance and the self. In: A. Rose (Ed.), Human behavior and social processes (pp. 86–118). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

PART IV NEW INTERPRETIVE WORKS

THE ESSENTIALS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM: A PAPER IN HONOR OF BERNARD N. MELTZER Gil Richard Musolf ABSTRACT This chapter in honor of Bernard N. Meltzer briefly reflects on what are the basic assumptions, foundational issues, and seminal concepts of symbolic interactionism (SI), a topic that Bernie and I discussed for nearly two decades. It reviews those concerns, but makes no attempt to survey the many varieties of SI. I center the rise of SI as one response to the nature-nurture controversy between 1870 and 1940. SI’s response to that controversy emphasized the interaction of structure and agency through which humans are constructed by society as they are in the process of constructing it. A number of concerns defines the essentials of SI: behaviorism versus minded behavior; antideterminism, structure, and agency; chance and emergence: ontological and methodological implications; selves, language, and role-taking; and symbols, meaning, and transformation. I conclude with a comment on Meltzer’s role in developing Central Michigan University as a regional center of SI.

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THE NATURE-NURTURE CONTROVERSY Symbolic interactionism (SI) arose as one response to the nature-nurture controversy between 1870 and 1940. Numerous scholars in intellectual history have chronicled that controversy, especially the complex relationship among biological determinism (instincts, intelligence, racial temperament), biological and psychological hereditarianism (IQ testing), introspectionist and functional psychology, social evolutionism, social Darwinism, scientific, sociological, and popular racism1 (monogeny,2 polygeny, crainiometry, phrenology, atavism, etc.), the transition in genetics from a unit-inheritance to a multigene perspective on ‘‘metrical’’ factors (which included, of course, intelligence), and the emergence of a biocultural model of human development (Ludmerer, 1972; Kevles, 1985; Marks, 1995). One perspective that opposed biological determinism was the work of Franz Boas that contributed to the rise of anthropology, along with Alfred Kroeber’s (1917) conceptualization of the ‘‘super-organic’’(the phrase coined by Herbert Spencer), which became the declaration of independence of culture from biology and the coup de graˆs to Lamarckianism.3 Another opposing perspective was Pragmatism, which emphasized socialization and the social nature of mind and self. SI emerged out of the pragmatist perspective. Socialization and culture were now beginning to be theorized as independent from biology, accented in W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki’s (1918) foundational text, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, a text that ‘‘found[ed] the discipline of sociology’’ (Wiley, 1986, p. 20) and influenced many Chicago sociologists.4 As Wiley states, they helped ‘‘to show that the symbol, interaction and culture were non-biological processes, explainable only in their own terms and within an uniquely new intellectual space’’ (p. 21). They also portrayed the subjective experience and social adaptation of ‘‘strangers in a strange land.’’ However, early interactionists such as James, Cooley, and Thomas did not fully eschew biological determinism, especially in their lingering adherence to instincts. It was George Herbert Mead’s opposition to John B. Watson, that is, to behaviorism and epiphenomenalism, that made his, and by extension SI’s, contribution to the demise of biological determinism. The Pragmatists’ tenet of the social nature of mind and self, the Boasians’ culture concept, and the geneticists’ multigene model undermined the eugenic, instinctivist, and hereditarian claims about fixed and unalterable characteristics. Their perspectives also advanced affirmative answers to William McDougall’s 1921 question, Is America Safe for Democracy? Assimilation and education became the social policy mantra of liberals5 to integrate southern and eastern European immigrants – but not

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African Americans (McKee, 1993, pp. 55–102) – into the culture, and sexist assumptions remained foundationally embedded in social science. The concepts of culture and socialization gave birth to anthropology and sociology; however, eugenicists and social Darwinists coopted those concepts to restate their arguments of black inferiority in terms of substandard culture and deficient socialization (McKee, 1993, pp. 96–97).

The Historical Context of the Nature-Nurture Controversy Other scholars have shown how the above theoretical developments were enveloped in a social context between roughly 1870 and 1940 that included, among the most important processes, industrialization, urbanization, the transition from laissez-faire to corporate capitalism, the closing of the American frontier, progressive politics and meliorism, the ideology of American exceptionalism, the Social Gospelers, muckrakers, and other reform groups, immigration (restriction) policy (especially as it affected eastern and southern European immigration), sterilization policy, eugenics (along with Margaret Sanger and the birth-control movement), Jim Crow, and debates over instincts, social Darwinism, hereditarianism, intelligence testing, assimilation, and civil rights legislation. These debates were enmeshed in ideology over ethnicity, immigration, and inequality. I would argue that at no other time in American history did social theory have more profound social policy consequences. Another socially significant historical event was the development in higher education of the rise of research universities and the differentiation of numerous disciplines from philosophy hungry for the meat of scientific status. One of the relevant academic debates that contributed to rise of interactionism was between quantitative and qualitative sociology. Sociologists espousing a qualitative approach made charges of scientism, that is, of a ‘‘mindless’’ positivism and the idolatry of science implicit in Spencer’s question ‘‘What knowledge is of most worth?’’. Quantitative sociologists, especially those influenced by the Vienna Circle, advanced countercharges centering on the meaninglessness of unverifiable claims (Aiken, 1962; Boring, 1963; Cravens, 1978; Curti, 1980; Degler, 1970; Denzin, 1977, 1992; Farberman, 1970; Faulkner, 1951; Gossett, 1969; Gould, 1981; Herman, 1943; Hinkle, 1980; Hofstadter, 1969; Jandy, 1942; Kluger, 1975; Kolko, 1967; Krantz & Allen, 1967; Lewis, 1976; McKee, 1993; Noble, 1967; Parrington, 1927; Prus, 1996; Ross, 1991; Schwendinger & Schwendinger, 1974; Shalin, 1988; Stocking, 1968; Thayer, 1973; Troyer, 1946; Weinstein, 1968; White, 1940; White, 1957; Wiebe, 1967).The quantitative-qualitative debate, now

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centering on the ‘‘politics of evidence,’’ (Cheek, 2008) still swirls in social science departments in the arguments of qualitative researchers on one side emphasizing meaning and social justice and, on the other side, in the scientistic arguments of the heirs to the Vienna Circle in, for example, Eysenck (Kvale, 2008). In addition, the quantophrenia associated with the rise of the ‘‘audit culture’’ and the ‘‘pursuit of certainty in uncertain times’’ is an empire that knows no bounds, undermining traditional projects of social justice (Cheek, 2008; Kvale, 2008). I now present a short account of SI’s founding theorists, followed by summaries of SI’s core concepts and assumptions.

THEORISTS AND INFLUENCES SI emerged as a sociological social psychology, but has become much more than that, incorporating structural and institutional concerns of power, race, class, gender, ideology, and social organization (Musolf, 1992, 2003/1998). It has contributed to the fields of education, family, deviance, and collective action. It originated in the pragmatist and social-psychological theorizing of William James, James Mark Baldwin, Charles Horton Cooley, W. I. Thomas, Robert Park, John Dewey, and, principally, George Herbert Mead. Most of the above studied in Germany, and all were variously, although differentially, influenced by recent German thought – for example, Wilhelm Dilthey’s historicism and Verstehen sociology (interpretation and understanding, respectively), Wilhelm Wundt’s Vo¨lkerpsychologie (folk psychology, concerned with gestures, language, and establishing a social psychology), and Georg Simmel’s sociology of forms that influenced ethnography (Joas, 1985; Prus, 1996). Adam Smith and David Hume, eighteenth-century Scottish Moralists, were also formative (Shott, 1976). One cannot chop or stretch these ‘‘early interactionists’’ into a theoretical Procrustean bed. Some remained mired in aspects of biological determinism although most were in the process of divorcing themselves from that perspective. In general, these theorists’, especially Dewey’s and Mead’s, opposition to both behaviorism and biological determinism (instincts), along with their agreements and disagreements with functional and introspectionist psychology, Darwinism, and the sociology of Herbert Spencer, stimulated concept formation. Anthropology’s emerging concept of culture proved critical. The Progressive movement and the politics of social reconstruction profoundly shaped Cooley, Dewey, and Mead’s theoretical perspectives. Those perspectives undermined biological determinism and, in addition, provided a theoretical justification to discredit the social policies of laissez-faire capitalism, eugenics,

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and scientific racism. Since humans were, in part, made by culture and socialization and thus malleable, meliorism could improve their lives, assimilate ethnics, and, thus, preserve democracy (Cravens, 1978; Hinkle, 1980; Ross, 1991). Mead primarily influenced Herbert Blumer, coiner of the phrase ‘‘symbolic interaction’’ (1937), who became SI’s leading theorist. Blumer espoused naturalistic inquiry as the most appropriate method to study human subjects (although other methods might be useful) so that sociologists as students in the human sciences could achieve Dilthey’s goal of Verstehen (understanding), especially of Erlebnis (lived experience), in contradistinction to Erkla¨ren (explanation), which Dilthey and Blumer regarded as anathema, appropriate solely for the natural sciences (Baugh, 2006; Bowie, 1996; Colomy & Brown, 1995, pp. 28–29; Hammersley, 1990; Prus, 1996; Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2005).6 Pragmatism and early interactionism developed in a social context; those processes have been enumerated above. Contemporary interactionism is richly nourished by other perspectives, including semiotics, hermeneutics, existentialism, phenomenology, feminism, dramaturgy, structuration, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, postmodernism, poststructuralism, neo-Marxism, queer theory, narrative and discourse studies, and cultural studies (see also Sandstrom & Fine, 2003).

ARGUMENT AND CONTROVERSY The main argument of SI is that, for nonhuman animals, behavior is a direct, learned – although noninterpretive – response to natural (environmentally embedded) signs or communicative gestures; for humans, it is an interpretive reply to iconic, nonverbal, and, primarily, linguistic symbols (speech and text). Symbols are constituted by humans interactively assigning arbitrary and consensual meanings to things. Unlike natural signs that refer solely to concrete objects and events in the present, symbols instead refer and allude to past, present, future, and nonesuch concrete and abstract referents (White, 1940; Langer, 1963; Hewitt, 2003). An apple is a sign of food for both humans and chimpanzees, but only for humans is it a symbol of the certainty of death and the brevity of earthly pleasures when present in a vanitas painting. For Mead, human interaction was a conversation of significant symbols, significant in the sense that the symbol means the same to all actors involved in the situation – hence, symbolic interaction or communication.

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Childhood socialization endows actors with the unique human capacity both to symbolize nonverbal and linguistic referents and to empathize with others. Humans also display nonsymbolic habitual behavior, that is, behavior in which the self is uninvolved. This argument is adhered to by almost all symbolic interactionists and many other social psychologists; however, some animal communication scientists (and a rare interactionist) argue that lower order animals (some researcher’s remarkable chimpanzee, bonobo, dog, or even pigeon) possess the communicative capacity to engage in minded behavior on which hinges the ability to constitute objects as symbols, acquire language, and develop selves. The initial cognitive ability to symbolically represent objects was made possible by biological evolution in brain structure and function; moreover, evolution in human facial morphology facilitated ‘‘[p]honeme articulation’’ (d’Errico et al., 2003, pp. 27–31; Deacon, 1997). Intelligence, humans’ adaptive capacity to suspend the stimulus-response sequence and engage in minded behavior, also emerged, as the functional psychologists argued, through cerebral evolution. Noam Chomsky’s (1968) argument that humans have evolved an innate ability to acquire language, a ‘‘universal grammar’’ or a ‘‘language acquisition device’’ (LAD), and the argument of Steven Pinker (2007), a cognitive scientist, that humans have a ‘‘language instinct’’ are widely accepted, but still controversial.7 Anthropologists and linguists have argued that the concomitant cultural evolution of symbolization and representation arose from cooperation, coordination, planning, and imagination of future contingencies and consequences entailed in communal behavior, primarily hunting and gathering (Burling, 2007, p. 182).8 The evolutionary processes of brain development and facial morphology have qualitatively differentiated humans from other primates, grounding the gateway to complex symbol development, such as gestures, vocal gestures, and, what are unique mental capacities, language, and culture.9 Burling (2007, p. 184) argues that language emerged through social interaction in the process of ‘‘establishing, maintaining, and refining social relationships’’ as well as ‘‘in conducting interpersonal negotiations, in competing, in manipulating, in scheming y’’ (pp. 184–185). Cultural evolution is ongoing and is doing so at an increasing pace as symbol paradigms multiply and prove more complex. As Seidenberg and Petitto (1987) have contended, arguments that lower order animals perform symbolic communication tend to conflate – even efface – the differences between human and nonhuman animal cognitive performances; moreover, they gloss over the distinctions between signs and symbols and between lower order animals’ cognitive and linguistic capacities. Such distinguishing failures render nonhuman communications research, which

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fails to make these distinctions, underconceptualized. Interactionists argue, in addition, that such failings commit the fallacy of anthropomorphism. Such controversies have made ‘‘language’’ almost rise to the status of an ‘‘essentially contested concept.’’

BEHAVIORISM VERSUS MINDED BEHAVIOR Behaviorism, a reaction to unscientific – that is, nonpositivistic and introspectionist – psychology, negated consciousness or, at best, regarded it – and anything unobservable and thus unverifiable – as epiphenomenal. Mentalistic concepts such as mind and consciousness were averred impotent, unable to cause or effect anything, mere jetsam and flotsam on the sea of physical processes. Action was modeled as a simple stimulusresponse sequence influenced by conditioning. Animal researchers adhered to this model without objection from interactionists. Behaviorists, however, extended the paradigm from nonhuman animals to humans, glossing over the embedded fallacy of zoomorphism. Dewey and Mead countered that humans are not passive reactors to ‘‘objectively given’’ stimuli but are, instead, active interpreters of the symbolic nature of stimuli. Actors enveloped in a culture and/or subculture intersubjectively share the symbolic meaning of objects, communication, and interaction. Minded behavior is meaningful, purposeful, intentional, and patterned, that is, normative (see Meltzer, 2003, for an extended discussion). Yet, the meaning of objects, communication, and interaction for any given actor contingently emerges out of the process of interaction with others, often violating normative expectations, and generating diversity, novelty, even deviance. Responses from others and ourselves, always already culturally embodied, remain uncertain. Actors reflect rather than respond by reflex. Culture, subculture, institutions, history, and myriad environmental factors make human responses varied, unlike the noninterpretive and instinctive, thus invariant and universal, responses of lower order animals (sex, of course, differentiating responses) to a stimulus. Selves emerge socially, share culture intersubjectively, but exhibit subjectivity. In addition, individuals collectively develop social structure, a differential social structure, that constructed, differential structure influences conduct.10 Thus, behavior is probabilistic rather than predictable; uncertainty, variety, and novelty loom in definitions of situations, themselves grounded in culture and experience, the influence of structure and agency (paragraph draws from Musolf, 2003).

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ANTIDETERMINISM, STRUCTURE, AND AGENCY Behavior is influenced but not determined by either internal (e.g., biological or psychological) or external (e.g., cultural or institutional) forces but emerges from the interplay of structure and agency. Structure refers to the innumerable, inescapable social facts – social things possessing externality and constraint – that have power effects on the individual, group, and community. Durkheim’s notions of normative coercion and societal sanctions are examples. Agency refers to the power effects of the self that emerged from the evolution of the brain in the form of intelligence, or minded behavior, that is, humans’ ability through thought, consciousness, language, and symbolic communication, in general, reflexivity (the defining, self-indicative, and interpretive process), to make culture and history, adjustive responses to others, adaptations of self to an evolving social environment, intersubjective joint action, including negotiated opposition to organizational roles and rules and collective action against tyrannical structures – although not under conditions of their own choosing. Even slaves made their own world, as Eugene D. Genovese has eloquently written in Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1976). For example, role is a structure that restricts, but how we choose to make our roles given limitations through defining our past, present, and future, is agency. All action is ‘‘structurally situated action’’ (Hall, 2003). We are the stuff of culture and institutions; yet, humans construct the culture and institutions that shape them. This ongoing, interdependent process explains why culture, institutions, and the values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors of humans change reciprocally: they coevolve.

CHANCE AND EMERGENCE: ONTOLOGICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Meltzer’s understanding of the centrality of agency to SI led him to focus on the ontological and methodological implications of chance and emergence. Manis and Meltzer argue that social life is characterized by ‘‘emergent events y that contain novel features that are not entirely derived from antecedent events or experiences’’ (1992, p. 334). These novel features of everyday life arise because meaning is never static, it is always evolving. What was once meaningful can become meaningless, and vice versa, thus entailing changes in behavior. This means that ‘‘the sphere of the social is a

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creative, open-ended process rather than a static structure’’ (p. 336). ‘‘[H]uman beings negotiate, or construct, what is happening, and the behavioral outcomes are never completely known in advance,’’ so much so, in fact, that ‘‘[i]ndividual actors find that their actual behavior in given situations may differ from what they expected to do’’ (p. 336). Emergent behavior is possible because humans have both agency and reflective thinking or minded behavior, that is, they employ a ‘‘dialogic process’’ of interaction between the ‘‘I’’ and ‘‘Me’’ phases of the self in the construction of their acts. Humans constantly self-indicate, interpret, and define situations around them, and what they take into account is not ‘‘predetermined by prior conditions’’ (p. 338). Rather than determinism, the emergence argument of SI leaves us with ‘‘the finality of probabilism in human affairs’’ (p. 339). Chance is also ‘‘part of the structure of the universe’’ (Manis & Meltzer, 1994, p. 46). It holds ‘‘ontological or objective,’’ not just ‘‘epistemic or subjective,’’ status (p. 46). An epistemic view of chance means that the causes have as yet not been discovered. Chance, then, has important methodological implications for sociology as a discipline. ‘‘Unexpected, important events are most likely to be observed when the inquiry is open and flexibly structured’’ (p. 54). If a researcher follows this procedure, he or she can observe ‘‘the process of act construction’’ and in so doing ‘‘perceive actors’ meanings or interpretations in order to understand their conduct’’ (Meltzer & Manis, 1992, p. 339) and ‘‘render social life fairly intelligible’’ (p. 340). Researchers can gain valuable scientific insights when not looking for them through ‘‘the observation and exploitation of unsought-for accidental discoveries’’ of serendipity (Meltzer, 1995). If they are ‘‘prepared, appreciative, and intelligent observer[s]’’ (p. 82), who employ ‘‘a disciplined broadmindedness’’ (p. 89), then this ‘‘[e]xploration enlarges the likelihood of encountering, attending to, indicating to themselves, and defining, both expected and novel categories of data’’ (p. 93). Researchers’ ‘‘use of sensitizing concepts opens the door wide to undertaking the incorporation and interpretation of anomalies into their analyses’’ (p. 93). Just as actors behave in situations, so do sociologists act in the course of their research. Meltzer’s focus on agency, chance, and emergence led him to a, still contentious, differentiation between the Chicago (founded by Herbert Blumer) and Iowa (founded by Manfred H. Kuhn) schools of thought. He first identified the two schools of thought of SI as a brief reference in the 1967 Manis and Meltzer reader. As Meltzer points out, the ‘‘Chicago and Iowa schools refer to intellectual perspectives, not to geographical locations’’ (Meltzer, Petras, & Reynolds, 1975, p. 81). Their differences are

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instead based primarily on preferred methodology (p. 53). Blumer favored methods that place a humanistic emphasis on understanding. Kuhn was a proponent of methods that tried to achieve a nomothetic (generalizing) result. He was interested in ‘‘universal predictions of social conduct,’’ substantiated through research that operationalized and empirically tested concepts (Meltzer & Petras, 1970, pp. 6–7). For example, Kuhn contended that one could gain an understanding of self-attitudes through a paper and pencil technique – the ‘‘Twenty Statements Test,’’ commonly referred to as the ‘‘Who am I’’ test – and that these self-attitudes determined behavior, a foundational difference between the Iowa and Chicago schools of interactionism. Kuhn’s methodology also committed him to variable analysis, which entailed ‘‘a static, stimulus-response image of human behavior’’ (p. 9). Meltzer and Petras (pp. 9–14) argue that the Iowa school’s substantive emphasis accentuated determinacy in human conduct, such as the abovementioned idea that self-attitudes are an internal determination of behavior. The ‘‘I’’ component of the self is discarded, thus ignoring negotiation and emergence in human interaction. In addition, the Iowa school also underscores structure over process, that is, highlighting the role-playing, rather than the role-making, aspects of behavior; moreover, it excluded nonsymbolic behavior in humans. Humans possession of a self is what allows us to engage in symbolic behavior.

SELVES, LANGUAGE, AND ROLE-TAKING Role-taking is the mental manipulation that we employ to linguistically engage in self-objectification. With names and labels – language – we are able to step outside of our selves as subjects and see our selves as others do (reflexive role-taking), that is, as objects. We become conscious of our selves (reflective self-consciousness) and separate our selves from others (Lindesmith, Strauss, & Denzin, 1988). Role-taking awards humans with three abilities: (1) imagining how others will act out the roles of the social positions they occupy, (2) imagining how others view their social worlds, and (3) evaluating one’s self from the perspectives of both significant and generalized others (Turner, 1956, 1962). Significant others are those meaningful to us at any given time. A generalized other represents the values, beliefs, and norms of abstract standpoints, such as a group, subculture, or culture. Role-taking, if I may conjure Hamlet and slight metonymy, is the thing wherein we catch the consciousness of the king. Thus, humans behave toward their selves as

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objects: planning, initiating, controlling, and refraining from action. Objects, others, and our selves are symbolically constituted entities. Through the mediated effects of symbolic communication on perceptions, for example, theory, ideology, habitus, hegemony, prejudice, culture, metaphor, and the very vocabulary of the language we use (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), we do not passively receive, or directly ‘‘see,’’ objects, but actively constitute them as objects-as-they-appear-to-us. Interacting with objects, others, and our selves as objects, as symbolic representations, we engage in symbolic interaction. Without the acquisition of language, one cannot view or act toward one’s self as an object. And until the self becomes an object to itself through language, it cannot develop. Role-taking and language acquisition are foundational and inseparable processes of self-objectification and selfdevelopment. Through agency, humans not only make their selves by selectively taking the role of significant and generalized others but, in addition, they constitute their selves by role-making. Children internalize and construct culture through socialization, especially as bricoluers in their play and games in which they linguistically engender their selves, minds, and consciousness (paragraph draws from Musolf, 1996). However, role-taking from the perspectives of others also inscribes the communal, cultural, and historical nature to our minds and selves. Thus, role-making has constraints and consequences. Our very motivations for doing are social, that is, normative. Some of us jump into mosh pits, others yell ‘‘bravo’’ at the prima donna. What we actually do emerges from an inner conversation of significant gestures between two constructs that Mead coined as the I and the Me; the former is an impulsive, creative, unsocialized tendency to act, and the latter is the internalization of as many normative orders and referent others that are meaningful to us, upon which we draw to evaluate alternative plans of action. We constitute our selves by our interpretations of what we think others think of us, an argument Cooley articulated in his concept of the lookingglass self, synonymous with the recent phrase of ‘‘reflected appraisals’’ (Weigert & Gecas, 2003).Yet, interpretations and knowledge of others’ appraisals does not mean acceptance of them; for example, one can resist racist, classist, and sexist evaluations, as interactionist research has shown (Rosenberg, 1965, 1979). Humans have choice in whom they role-take from, although an oppressive culture can have negative effects on self-esteem. And if we think that others think favorably of us, we manifest status anxiety nevertheless, importunely seeking reaffirmations. Humans, of course, can also misinterpret what others think of them, making either a false-negative or a false-positive attribution. We are to ourselves what we interpret

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ourselves to be. Of course, if we misinterpret our selves to be something other than what we are – a case of role-taking incompetence – others, if we are acting as a pompous prig, will recognize such foppery and offer correctives, which may improve our role-taking accuracy and foster selfreinterpretations. However, a dull-witted, dense, or mentally deranged self might define such correctives as anything from envy to persecution. Interpretations constitute knowledge of phenomena, of things-as-theyappear; consequently, they are not infallible or definitive. Knowing through interpretation casts an epistemological scrim, haze, or rime over the knowability of others and our selves (Natanson, 1970). Stalking reality through interpretation is both illusive and elusive; at best, we bag the linguistic game of masks and mirrors, of differential awareness contexts (Strauss, 1969; Weigert & Gecas, 2003). Intentionally presenting a false self to engage in frame foolery or con games is something else altogether and falls under matters of deception (Goffman, 1974). A metaphysical consequence of standpoint consciousness (and what arouses, in part, the sociological interest in stratification and life chances) is that if we were from different families, schools, and associations, from foreign cultures, or from ancient periods of history, then we would think and be other than what we now think and are. Consciousness is historical. The social facts of class, race, and gender affect the constitution of minds and selves. Sociolinguists have demonstrated that the quality of speech communities affects the caliber of both making life unfair and meritocracy a myth – the American myth. The self possesses creativity, choice, spontaneity, and novelty. People are malleable, which allows the environment to impinge on the human being. Actors have the potential to adapt to environmental impact and act back on their environment, thereby influencing it. Consequently, they have the capacity to improve the human condition in general and the quality of life and opportunities available for each individual. Values and politics shape our cultural destiny. Since the self is a social object, one can act on it and reconstitute one’s self. Thus, society, self, and mind are in a perpetual, recursive, and irreducible process of becoming. Humans are the sui generis architects of symbols, names, categories, and language. Language is the Promethean gift that keeps on giving: role-taking, reflexivity, intersubjectivity, minds, selves, society, and culture. Language is the human species foundational autapomorphy, which has made all the difference in the world (Marks, 1995, p. 25). SI’s model of human behavior, stimulus – interpretation – response, entails its opposition to determinism, essentialism, and positivism (variable analysis) as well as its advancement of emergence,

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selves, and the notion that society is constituted in the ongoing process of joint action (Blumer, 1966, p. 541). Finally, interactionism maintains that empirical methods to study humans take account of the nature of selves, their interpretive ability, and their capacity for symbolic communication through which humans socially construct reality, culture, and civilizations (Blumer, 1969; Prus, 1996).

SYMBOLS, MEANINGS, AND TRANSFORMATION Through selective attention to objects on the basis of the meaning (interest, desire) that those objects have for them, people create their own social worlds. However, the meanings of symbols and objects are not ever-fixed marks in our culture nor to us personally, so that when their meaning alters, our behavior changes vis-a`-vis those symbols and objects, including others and our selves as objects. The tempests of time toss much to reinterpretation. As long as history is being made, the meaning of everything that is can become other than what it was, especially the meaning of meaningfulness. Capitalistic culture is foundationally iconoclastic and subversive – a point on which many critics of the world unite, from Marxists who critique ‘‘bourgeois decadence’’ to ‘‘cultural warriors’’ who yearn for ‘‘family values’’ and desecularization. The meanings of objects emerge and change in the process of our interaction with them, that is, meaning is socially constructed, maintained, and altered, which explains individual, relationship, and societal stability and change. For example, the meaning of ‘‘relationship’’ has changed in a culture gone Hollywood. As celebrities have thrown a wet blanket on weddings even when they procreate – perhaps from a fear of being swept away by rampant rakes and gold-digging demimondes – yesterday’s deviance becomes today’s norm. Marriages, love affairs, and friendships might endure as lifelong commitments, but lodestars, especially libidinous ones, lose longevity as cohabitants’ ephemerality and our divorce rates attest. Love, perverted from the thing it was, turns to disgust for George and Martha in Edward Albee’s well-known play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The loss of love in their marriage requires illusion to endure it, symbolized by their nonexistent son. Talk about talking about nonesuch objects! Termagant Taylor and buffeted – if not unmanned – Burton perform as panderers, enticing voyeurs into the world of a world-class me´salliance. Interaction is pockmarked with wry expressions as they bait each other over the meanings of past behavior. Years of septic interaction festers a necrotic mass on their marriage that can only be healed, for

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starters, by the excision of their nonexistent son.11 But all transformation is not ‘‘ice storms,’’ for example, students who detest college and drop out sometimes return years later (reinterpreting their self as in need of a better job, higher income, or, heaven forbid, an education) as highly motivated nontraditional students. Reversals of fortune, good or bad, engender reinterpretations. And just as the personal is political for George and Martha, the meaning of culture itself is political (Denzin, 2003). Actors and ‘‘acting units’’ (Blumer, quoted in Katovich & Maines, 2003, p. 300) interact through braided processes of domination and resistance, love and cooperation, competition and self-interest, and vested interests such as class, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, ideology, conquest and colonialism, and reform and revolution. The meaning of culture is made – made politically and, as is horrifyingly evident, often made violently. History is the ongoing process through which meanings arise from projects of conflict and cooperation embedded in personal, regional, national, and global interactions between and among agents, both individual and collective. History is the meaning-making process of power and struggle implicated in relationships, associations, organizations, and nations (Denzin, 2003. p. 999). Meaning, however, is not made in a fair game – it is always already the case that in ‘‘asymmetric relations,’’ the deck is stacked and the dice are loaded (Hall, 1997).Interpretations, meanings, and culture are preponderantly shaped by those who have power to define situations. Situations that have huge social, cultural, and global effects are structured into ‘‘inequality orders’’ (Hall, 2003) by those possessing ‘‘metapower’’ (Hall, 1997). The powerful manufacture deviants (Lemert, 1973; Becker, 1973) and ‘‘spoiled identities’’ (Goffman, 1963); they label, discredit, and subject opponents to ‘‘status degradation ceremonies’’ (Garfinkel, 1973); they destroy lives through communication, for example, propaganda, McCarthyism, identity outings, and the politics of personal destruction. However, wherever there is power, there is resistance (Foucault, 1979). Contestation over power is where the action is (Blumer, quoted in Katovich & Maines, 2003, p. 302). For reasons of power, stakeholders want meanings to be socially reproduced through venerated and traditional rituals, rites, and ceremonies of interaction, while others who ‘‘speak truth to power’’ want to transgress or implode meanings through disruptive rituals, rites, and ceremonies. Either way, no project or discourse is innocent, objective, or standpoint-neutral (Denzin, 2003, p. 1002). But we still must choose our projects and discourses; therefore, judgmental relativity is not an option, and adjudication of competing claims to reality and truth is inescapable

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while alive. A dialogically constituted self indefeasibly sees and practices from a discursive formation. Only if absent from the self could one be mindless and thus choiceless – an impossibility. What is moral, ethical, and reasonable is decided and chosen in acts of discursive practice – even if it is making no choice in an illusionary escape from freedom and responsibility (Fromm, 1941). Uncertainty, contingency, ephemerality, emergence, process, reflectivity, choice, struggle, lability, and transformation are defining characteristics of the human condition; there are others, but these are the ones to which interactionists attend.

MELTZER’S ROLE IN CREATING CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY AS A REGIONAL CENTER OF SI Finally, I would like to comment on how Meltzer helped to build Central Michigan University (CMU) into a regional center of SI. Stanley Saxton (1987, p. 4) has noted that CMU’s Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work is among a handful of nationally recognized programs in SI. Meltzer had much to do with that. Almost all scholars who came to Central, whether proponents of SI or other perspectives, were attracted by the tradition of scholarship, open debate, and democratic governance that Meltzer had built in his twenty-eight years as chair of the department. Many SI scholars who came (some of them for only a few years), have, collectively, contributed hundreds of articles on the theory and methods of SI. Some of the better known are Carl J. Couch, John W. Petras, and Robert L Stewart. Larry T. Reynolds was a constant critic of SI, prompting interactionists to attend to an astructural bias. Meltzer was helpful in recruiting faculty who had completed dissertations on SI.12 He collaborated with SI colleagues because of the sheer pleasure such collaboration brought, but the fortunate consequence was articles and texts that helped to clarify SI’s concepts and create CMU as a nationally recognized regional program. He especially enjoyed intellectual debates during coffee with many of his SI colleagues. It was Meltzer’s arguments with Couch and Stewart while they were at Central that spawned his idea that there are the Chicago and Iowa schools of thought. Another way Meltzer helped to build CMU’s reputation was through his reader and his work on Mead. Many longer and more comprehensive studies exist, but none distill the essence of Mead’s thought so well as The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead, and its subsequent

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incarnations.13 Originally published as a booklet in 1959, Western Michigan University printed five editions before the copyright was transferred to CMU, who reprinted it thereafter. He slightly revised it for each edition of Symbolic Interaction: A Reader in Social Psychology (Manis & Meltzer, 1967/1972/1978).14 Sociologists, social psychologists, and symbolic interactionists began to include excerpts of the booklet in their readers. Besides the versions mentioned, it was published in seventeen other readers, including one in Norway. He told me, however, that he was the proudest of his final version believing that he had finally and, just in time, gotten it just right. This crowning revision, Symbolic Interactionism, was published in Within the Social World: Essays in Social Psychology, edited by Jeffrey Chin and Cardell K. Jacobson (2009). In print for nearly five decades, two generations of undergraduate and graduate students have read it, guiding them to a deeper understanding of the leading founder of SI. The 2009 version means that its influence will continue for many years to come. The three editions of the Manis and Meltzer reader also helped to establish CMU as an institution that took SI seriously and were invaluable to a generation of students and faculty studying SI.

NOTES 1. Sociological racism was epitomized by Howard W. Odum’s Social and Mental Traits of the Negro: Research into the Conditions of the Negro Race in Southern Towns: A Study of Race Traits, Tendencies and Prospects. New York: Columbia University Press, 1910. Popular racism was exemplified in works such as Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916, and Lothrop Stoddard’s Rising Tide of Color against White World-Supremacy, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920. Scientific racism remains in the academic community, especially in attempts to link race and IQ. The following scholars argue that blacks as a ‘‘race’’ have lower IQ scores than whites; thus, their inferiority: Hans Eysenck, Arthur R. Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton, Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray, and Michael E. Levin. Leonard Jeffries argues that whites are inferior to blacks; see Alexander Alland, Jr., Race in Mind: Race, IQ, and other Racisms, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 2. Monogeny is a foundational tenet in the theory of human origins if one is an adherent to either the Multiregional Continuity or the Out of Africa model, although the former has been falsely represented as polygenic. ‘‘‘Multiregional’ does not mean independent multiple origins, ancient diversions of modern populations, simultaneous appearance of adaptive characters in different regions, or parallel evolution’’ (Wolpoff, Hawks, & Caspari, 2000, p. 34). ‘‘[M]ultiregional evolution describes a process within a single evolving species y’’ (p. 132; my emphasis). Polygeny is inherently racist; however, early adherents to monogeny also were racists,

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extrapolating, for example, from scripture that nonwhite races were the result of processes of degeneration from Adam and Eve; see, for example, John S. Haller, Jr., Outcasts from Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1971. 3. ‘‘This incorrect theory, the ‘inheritance of acquired characters,’ holds that useful traits, developed by sustained effort or impress during an organism’s lifetime, may be passed directly to offspring by altered heredity. This theory usually goes by the name of Lamarckism because Lamarck invoked it in the first important evolutionary treatise of modern science, his Philosophie Zoologique of 1809. This designation is both unfair and ironic. Lamarck did not invent Lamarckism. Inheritance of acquired characters was the standard view of heredity in his day, a virtual folk wisdom’’ (Gould, 1996, p. 2). 4. ‘‘This work is a strong competitor for the position of the most valuable contribution to American sociological literature’’ (Faris, 1928, p. 816). A view that held for a long time. 5. Earlier, Progressives (though having various leanings) were economic reformers who favored regulatory over laissez-faire capitalism and political reformers who expanded democracy through, for example, the initiative, referendum, direct primary, direct election of US senators, the recall, and women’s suffrage, but who were also classist, racist, and anti-ethnic by advocating, or acquiescing to, eugenics, Jim Crow laws, and immigration restriction. Progressives’ melioristic but antisocialist politics and policy signified the dawning of the welfare state and the twilight of the Gilded Age. 6. Blumer did not favor statistics or experimentation. ‘‘Blumer acknowledges that statistical method might be appropriate where interpretation has become routinized. But he argues even here variable analysis can produce only summaries of patterns of behavior, and that these patterns may change at any time as a result of participants reinterpreting the situations they are in, thereby invalidating the description’’ (Hammersley, 1990, p. 114). ‘‘Blumer believes that the exacting controls involved in experimental social research create a unique situation having no analogy outside the laboratory’’ (Baugh, 2006, p. 83; my emphasis). 7. ‘‘[Language] is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently’’ (Pinker, 2007, pp. 4–5); that is to say, language is not learned and culture is inefficacious. 8. When did this all happen? It is now part of paleoanthropological consensus that by 30,000 years ago, behaviorally modern humans were everywhere. However, the origins of symbolic interaction, the behavior not the perspective, is controversial. d’Errico et al. challenge the prevailing theory that the symbolic revolution occurred in the Upper Paleolithic (Eurasia)/Late Stone Age (Africa) period of 40,000 years ago. They argue that ‘‘late Neandertals produced and wore a repertoire of personal ornaments [that can be] interpreted as proof of symbolic thinking’’ (2003, p. 3) ‘‘[and that] [i]f pigment use is an archaeological indication of symbolic behavior, and indirectly of language, the origin of these abilities, traditionally attributed to AMH [anatomically modern humans], has to be considered more ancient than commonly

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accepted’’ (p. 4). They marshal lithic, ivory, bone, burial, and other archaeological evidence, as well as Neandertal skeletal morphology, to establish their argument. In addition, Neandertals may even have been the makers of fashion. ‘‘[W]e have shown that Chaˆtelperronian Neandertals were the makers of a wealth of personal ornaments and bone tools found at Grotte du Renne y . Neandertal authorship is also demonstrated at other French sites such as Quinc- ay (Charente region) where late Neandertals perforated teeth using techniques different from those used by Aurignacian AMH’’ (p. 22; emphasis in original). 9. ‘‘There remains disagreement as to whether speech evolved from vocal or gestural antecedents’’ (Knight, 1998, p. 16). However, Burling argues (2007, p. 123) that ‘‘the gestural theory has one nearly fatal flaw. Its sticking point has always been the switch that would have been needed to move from a visual language to an audible one.’’ 10. Bernie Meltzer, personal communication. 11. This metaphor is, I think, some critic’s whose due citation escapes me. 12. Three faculty who spent or will spend almost all of their academic careers at Central completed dissertations specifically on the theory of SI: John W. Petras (The Genesis and Development of Symbolic Interactionism in American Sociology, University of Connecticut, 1966) Larry T. Reynolds (The Sociology of Symbolic Interactionism, Ohio State University, 1969), and Gil Richard Musolf (The Social Origins of Symbolic Interactionism: Corporate Capitalism, Progressive Politics, and the Nature/Nurture Debate, Volumes I and II, Michigan State University, 1989). 13. Meltzer was not the first to come up with the title, ‘‘The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead.’’ Anselm Strauss, a cohort of Meltzer’s, had penned that title for his 1956 book, published by the University of Chicago. Strauss’s text was, primarily, an abridged edition of Mead’s three most important works: Mind, Self, and Society, Moments of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, and The Philosophy of the Act. Strauss wrote a thirteen-page introduction on Mead. One of the first, if not the first, scholars to give public attention to Mead was T. V. Smith, who authored ‘‘The Social Philosophy of George Herbert Mead,’’ published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1931, the year of Mead’s death. Of course, even earlier, Herbert Blumer had been heavily influenced by Mead and that impact shows in his 1928 University of Chicago dissertation, ‘‘Methods in Social Psychology.’’ Blumer’s dissertation was directed by Ellsworth Faris, who was an ardent follower of Mead’s social psychology. 14. Meltzer noted in the preface to the 1967 reader that, it was ‘‘the first attempt to bring together a sizable number of previously published contributions to symbolic interactionist theory y’’ (1967, p. v; emphasis in original). It is noted in footnote one on the same page that ‘‘A book by Rose compiles 34 articles written from the standpoint of symbolic interactionism; however, all but nine of these were written specifically for his book.’’ Manis and Meltzer are referring to the work of Arnold M. Rose, editor of Human Behavior and Social Processes, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962. Thus, the Manis and Meltzer reader was the first to compile a compendium of classics, along with significant ‘‘contemporary’’ published articles on the perspective. Arlene Kaplan Daniels (1968, p. 171) in a review of the reader thought that the articles accurately exemplified both ‘‘the Blumerian line of descent and [the] empiricists from the Iowa school representing Kuhn.’’

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Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. New York: Basic Books. Ross, D. (1991). The origins of American social science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sandstrom, K. L., & Fine, G. A. (2003). Triumphs, emerging voices, and the future. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. J. Herman-Kinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 1041–1057). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Saxton, S. (1987). The greying of symbolic interaction. SSI Notes, 13, 3–5. Schwendinger, H., & Schwendinger, J. (1974). The sociologists of the chair. New York: Basic Books. Seidenberg, M. S., & Petitto, L. A. (1987). Communication, symbolic communication, and language: Comment on Savage-Rumbaugh, McDonald, Sevcik, Hopkins, and Rupert (1986). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116, 279–287. Shalin, D. N. (1988). G. H. Mead, socialism, and the progressive agenda. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 913–951. Shott, S. (1976). Society, self, and mind in moral philosophy: The Scottish moralists as precursors of symbolic interactionism. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 12, 39–46. Stocking, G. W. (1968). Race, culture, and evolution. New York: Free Press. Strauss, A. (1969). Mirrors and masks: The search for identity. San Francisco: Sociology Press. Thayer, H. S. (1973). Meaning and action: A study of American pragmatism. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Troyer, W. (1946). Mead’s social and functional theory of mind. American Sociological Review, 11, 198–202. Turner, R. (1956). Role-taking, role-standpoint, and reference group behavior. American Journal of Sociology, 61, 316–328. Turner, R. (1962). Role-taking: Process versus conformity. In: A. Rose (Ed.), Human behavior and social processes (pp. 20–40). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Weigert, A. J., & Gecas, V. (2003). Self. In: L. T. Reynolds & N. J. Herman-Kinney (Eds), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 276–288). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Weinstein, J. (1968). The corporate ideal in the liberal state: 1900–1918. Boston: Beacon Press. White, L. A. (1940). The symbol: The origin and basis of human behavior. Philosophy of Science, 7, 451–463. White, M. (1957). Social thought in America: The revolt against formalism. Boston: Beacon Press. Wiebe, R. (1967). The search for social order: 1877–1920. New York: Hill and Wang. Wiley, N. (1986). Early American sociology and the Polish Peasant. Sociological Theory, 4, 20–40. Wolpoff, M. H., Hawks, J., & Caspari, R. (2000). Multiregional, not multiple origins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 112, 129–136.

COMMUNICATIVE SUSTAINABILITY: A FRAMEWORK FOR PERFORMANCE ACCOUNTING Wayne D. Woodward ABSTRACT The established role of communication in sustainability studies is mainly to transmit information, about or for sustainability: disciplinary knowledge or mobilization of popular support. This chapter addresses the sustainability of communication itself, with a performance accounting framework for sustainability of organizational communication. The organizational emphasis derives from incorporating basic concepts from the work of James R. Taylor and the ‘‘Montreal School’’ approach to theorizing organizational communication. Communication as ‘‘text’’ (discursive formats and genres) and ‘‘conversation’’ (interactive, situational sensemaking, and exchange) is assessed according to narrative and dramatistic logics in addition to instrumental ones; and sustainability standards are applied to ‘‘triadic’’ dimensions of communications: (1) the physicalartifactual substratum, or ‘‘carriers’’ of communication, including technologies, (2) symbolic forms that convey information, meanings, and ideologies, and (3) relations and interactions of communicative roleplaying. The goal is to provide for sustainable knowledge, meaning, and participation mainly in organizational settings.

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‘‘Oh no, I’ve said too much/I haven’t said enoughy’’ R.E.M., ‘‘Losing My Religion’’

This chapter inquires into the theoretical and pragmatic1 advisability of evaluating communication in terms of its sustainability. The aim is to establish communicative sustainability as a standard that should apply to the study of both communication and ecological sustainability. Hitherto, the perceived significance of communication in sustainability studies has been mainly in terms of the value of scientific or general interest information about sustainability that communications provide, or the likely persuasive impact of this information in advocacy campaigns; and sustainability has been presented as a concept with limited direct relevance to evaluating the quality of communication. Considering signification and communicative performance as core concerns of sustainability projects can contribute to protecting the integrity of communicative practices and of ‘‘productive ecological and physical processes’’ (Norton, 1996, p. 122). The intent is not to downplay the obvious multivocality of these sensitizing concepts, nor to domesticate their usage, but to map a common analytical landscape in which communication and sustainability can be considered in their relevant relations to each other. The first part of the chapter initiates this mapping. The second part presents a preliminary sketch of a performance accounting framework for organizational communication, a meso-level domain of consideration. Certain aspects of micro-level interactions, such as the centrality of co-orientation (Newcomb, 1953; Taylor, 2004) in organizational activities are cited in the course of analysis; and indications of how analysis of communicative sustainability might move to the macro-level of institutional dynamics, particularly in an environment of globalizing institutions, are included in the conclusion as horizons of consideration for further research.2

PRELIMINARY PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNICATION AND SUSTAINABILITY The idea of inquiring into the sustainability of communication may seem impertinent, particularly in the face of information society ideologies that construct equivalencies between information, communication, and meaning (Woodward, 1980, p. xviii), while positing inexhaustible stores of all three as ‘‘the production curve of information charts a constantly increasing abundance’’ (p. xv).3 Meanwhile, the experience of ‘‘unsustainable’’ communication is a recurrent, everyday event, if acknowledged: The conversation with a neighbor drags on past mutual interest; the firm’s 5-year plan is

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ignored after its first months of circulation; the goals of the international treaty are undermined by the outbreak of hostilities before the signatures are dry. Nor is it just words that are often ephemeral, but physical media and relations as well: The wedding cake collapses; the powerpoint presentation fails; and good relations with the computer technician were lost during an earlier demand for help. Communicative meanings, artifacts, and relations all have their sustainability tested within the contexts relevant to the values and purposes of the communicators. The establishment of ‘‘coorientation’’ (Newcomb, 1953) is an essential starting point for communication; and since ‘‘[a]ll structured human behavior is timeful’’ (Couch, 1990, p. 1), the coordination of activity through communication requires ‘‘sequencing’’ (passim). Sustainability concerns the perpetuation of sequencing activities toward ‘‘realization’’ (Radder, 1996, pp. 1 ff) – ‘‘active intervention at particular spatio-temporal locations’’ (p. 147) – of a practice, in this case communication. These ‘‘triadic’’ (Woodward, 1996) dimensions of communication emerge as evaluative touchstones for sustainability: (1) cognitive retentions, ‘‘symbolic content’’ (Thompson, 1995, p. 10), and ‘‘symbolic forms,’’ as the communicative elements that constitute meaning; (2) material inscriptions, ‘‘technical media’’ (p. 19), and behavioral performances, as the physicalartifactual substratum that provides ‘‘carriers’’ of meaningful content; and (3) relational identities of communicators that allow for social role-playing, cultural participation, and mutual-personal interactions. Communication and sustainability are matters of ‘‘provisioning’’ (Jonas, 1974, p. 90) an adequate stock of resources to satisfy present and future material needs and wants, and to build an ongoing, participatory common life. Proceeding from a foundational situation ‘‘wherein people align their actions with one another as they confront and are confronted by an environment’’ (Couch, 1996, p. 2), communication is conditioned by the physical-artifactual environment in which it takes place, while it also conditions this environment: Linkages and interdependencies form between the quality of meaning-making activities and the sustained value of the practices, objects, and agencies that acquire meanings through these activities. The ‘‘sustainability principle’’ (Norton, 1996, p. 122) holds ‘‘that each generation has an obligation to protect productive ecological and physical processes necessary to support options necessary for future freedom and welfare.’’ Communicative sustainability requires secured provision and protection of material (hardware), ideological (software), and relational resources required for ‘‘future human freedom and welfare’’ as normative values for all social practices.

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Many commentators would suggest that modern technological advances have resolved problems of productive scarcity in both communicative and material domains, although distributive demands for equity in resourcing basic needs obviously persist. Today’s multi-media environments allow for vastly augmented communicative production and consumption, and the legacy of industrial and post-industrial expansion makes material provision increasingly a matter of choice, not sheer necessity, for that portion of the world’s population that has benefited from this expansion. The ability to make choices highlights how ‘‘‘provisioning’ requires ‘providence,’ i.e., looking and planning ahead’’ (Jonas, 1974, p. 92). Equity takes on increased practical and ethical significance, and sustainability emerges as a moral concern. ‘‘[T]he questions arise: provident for whom? and how far ahead?’’ The personal and collective freedoms that persons require to pursue and to communicate their interests are central to the understandings of communication and sustainability that are required to address relevant issues of performance accounting.

INSTRUMENTAL AND EXPRESSIVE VIEWS OF PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTING Performance and accounting practices, when viewed from a communicational perspective, must be concerned with dual sets of values: instrumental – that is, oriented toward ‘‘goal achievement’’ (Corvellec, 1997, p. 27) – and expressive – that is, ‘‘proto-aesthetic’’ (Turner, 1990, p. 8) motives and consequences related to presentation and evaluation of signifying acts and symbolic forms. Instrumental performance, in organizational contexts, becomes a ‘‘measurement construct’’ (Corvellec, 1997, pp. 25 ff.) defined through quantitative accountings dictated by the values of ‘‘efficiencyyeffectivenessyoutput, or outcomeyresultyreturny’’ (p. 27). This conception of performance has become a ‘‘key motif’’ (p. 1) that ‘‘permeates contemporary societies’’ to such an extent that it now ‘‘shapes the lives of people and organizations in accordance with its logic and demands.’’ Expressive performance tends toward dramatic process (Turner, 1990) and reflects the ‘‘style and tempo’’ (p. 9) of theatrical presentations. The ‘‘ritualization’’ (Schechner, 1988, p. xiii) of activity is mirrored in accounts that are based on dramatistic (Burke, 1969) logics. From this perspective, the organization is viewed as a source of narratives that attain credibility and elicit support from stakeholders. Expressive performances also have attained considerable influence in contemporary societies, arguably in

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combination with the instrumentalities of production. ‘‘The whole life of these societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles’’ (Debord, 1995, p. 12). Consider an example of organizational communication from a case study (Weick, 2001, p. 266) of how a series of scheduling changes on an aircraft carrier led to a petty officer losing a leg when he neglected to tie down a plane. This incident must be judged instrumentally as a failed performance, the nonachievement of group goals associated with complex organizational management, such as an aircraft carrier requires. The overall, expressive qualities of coordination, balance, precision, even beauty, which would have to be included in a complete narrative account of the operation, are logically subordinated to the instrumental demand to communicate technical instructions that are then executed effectively, efficiently, and safely. A contrasting example would be the action of a clown who trips and falls (p. 263) as the planned result of not tying down the wagon that he and the stage crew intended to have roll into his path in the circus ring; the most adequate account of this performance would be constructed from a mainly expressive perspective and would result in an assessment of group success in managing the circus act so as to amuse the audience, which is the relevant instrumental concern. Both examples show that group activities reflect organizational purposes and fit into organizational systems; and both instances embody instrumental as well as expressive values. The performance accounting that applies is apportioned differently. Still, these examples reveal that, in organizational communication, instrumental and expressive logics are best seen to combine and complement, rather than inevitably to conflict with each other. The instrumental dimension of communication, that is, information exchange, constitutes the ‘‘immediate use context’’ (Ihde, 1990, p. 128) of organizational communication. A ‘‘primary instrumentalization’’ (Feenberg, 1999, p. 202) of language and communication media, as types of technology (Beniger, 1986, p. 9; Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 105), is consistent with ‘‘functional constitution of technical objects and subjects’’ as these are interactively coordinated toward the achievement of organizational goals. Primary realization is a formalizing, technically motivated moment. Expressive concerns emerge as part of a ‘‘secondary instrumentalization’’ (Feenberg, 1999, p. 202) that involves ‘‘realization of the constituted objects and subjects in actual networks and devices.’’ Secondary instrumentalization is situated, localized and localizing. The purposive activities of speakers, writers, and interactive senders/receivers expand into a ‘‘doubled context’’ (Ihde, 1990, p. 128), which can be considered as the ‘‘participation framework’’ (Hanks, 1996, p. 142) and ‘‘cultural field’’ that allow meanings, interactions, and

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identities to be constructed. Sustainability must be judged in relation to a ‘‘tripled’ context of communication – ‘‘the context of activity in which it is embedded, and which it influences’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 56). Here, analysis addresses the full range of factors communicators engage as they deploy technologies and artifacts, construct and interpret meanings, and establish, maintain, and repair identities and relations. A triadic (Woodward, 1996) communicative context again applies, constituting ‘‘(i) personhood and identities; (ii) environments; and (iii) socio-cultural orders’’ (Woodward, 2001a, p. 282). As participants take on functionally congruent identities (Miller, Hintz, & Couch, 1975, p. 22), they are enabled to conduct cooperative interactions and transactions within a resource environment, or ‘‘opportunity structure’’ (Merton, 1996, pp. 153ff.) that is constructed, maintained, transformed, and repaired (Carey, 1989, p. 23) through communicative processes that are both source and product of organizational culture.

TEXT AND CONVERSATION: PROGRAM AND ‘‘PLIANCY’’ Forming a common focus, or ‘‘coorientation’’ (Taylor and Van Every, 2000, pp. 33 ff.; Newcomb, 1953; Taylor, 2004), is basic, but the process cannot be instrumentally pursued by ‘‘rationalizing’’ communication, when rationalization involves ‘‘destruction or ignoring of information in order to facilitate its processing’’ (Beniger, 1986, p. 15). This rationalizing tendency cannot deliver contextual specificity and thus leaves a residual ambiguity that haunts its search for precision. Many types of communication retain an instrumental core, particularly in goal-directed settings, such as modern organizations; however, all communication is additionally ‘‘saturated’’ by context, which cannot be ‘‘destroyed or ignored,’’ but instead, must be responsibly sustained. Contextualist (Rosnow & Georgoudi, 1986; Woodward, 2001b) research and theorizing in communication must take into account a range of expressive considerations that have methodological, practical, and ethical significance; these include ‘‘interplay among linguistic meaning, the situated themes ofyutterances, the ‘temporarily shared intersubjective world’ of the interlocutors, and the broader sociocultural horizon’’ (Hanks, 1996, p. 151). Still, certain basic dynamics of communication can be identified. All communication moves in a trajectory toward its situated realization through an interplay between ‘‘typification’’ (Hanks, 1996, pp. 128 ff.; cites Schutz, 1973) and particularity; or – alternatively – between standardization and

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differentiation; redundancy and variety; conformity and flexibility; generic form and its material/behavioral manifestations; control and spontaneity. James R. Taylor (1993) labeled these elements as ‘‘text’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 37) and ‘‘conversation’’ (p. 39) and established their intersection as a grid on which to map communication generally, and organizational communication, in particular. The concept of ‘‘text’’ points to a ‘‘structuring principle’’ that is inherent to communication, since it includes communicators’ foundational dependence on ‘‘more or less systematic ways to produce a coherent, understandable piece of language’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 37), or, one should add, an acceptable communicative behavior. Texts are inscribed records ‘‘of’’ (Carey, 1989, p. 29), and scripts ‘‘for,’’ communication. Textual inscriptions are materially realized as ‘‘something written down, stored, displayed, or sent through the mails’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 35); although they may be retained in collective and personal memory as cognitively retrievable lexicons, grammars, and formulas of usage. These cognitive forms of memory must be encoded in an ‘‘extrasomatic form’’ (Adams, 1988, p. 82) outside an individual’s nervous system to enter into culture (Woodward, 1996, p. 167), at which point, the material sustainability of communication comes directly into consideration. The message sculptured in ice may fail to stay in being long enough to reach its intended recipient, and a drugged mind may be unable to recall the telephone message. All of which is to say that the energetic vehicle can deform information and information can deform the vehicle, whether we deal with human nervous systems or extrahuman material forms. (Adams, 1988, p. 81)

Sustainable, textual production/consumption makes available a ‘‘repertoire of stored material’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 37) that is basic to the emergence of ‘‘conversation,’’ the other formative dimension of communication. Conversation can be thought of as ‘‘an essential sociality’’ (p. 31) that engenders ‘‘the indispensable stream of collective experience’’ (p. 73). It is the ‘‘site’’ (p. 37) of communication, the space/time, where and when, on-the-spot, in-the-moment ‘‘circumstances’’ (p. 38) render communication as ‘‘ineluctably contextual, situated, occasional, grounded, iterative, and cumulative’’ (p. 40). The ‘‘organizational conversation’’ (p. 35) is ‘‘the total universe of shared-interaction-through-languaging of the people who together identify with a given organization.’’ Through the activity of conversation, the triadic character of communication is disclosed. ‘‘The circumstances constitute a framework of identities and habits, not just of the participating members, but also their physical and symbolic context’’ (p. 38).

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The dimension of text demonstrates that communication is programmable according to rules of order; these are procedural norms that govern the transformation of ‘‘the necessary input to and inevitable output from communication: both raw material and product’’ (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 39). The dimension of conversation also contains a normative element, which is the required basis of workable concurrence among communicators concerning shared values, mutually acceptable behaviors, and the conditions and obligations of reciprocity that support interactions and transactions. Texts, as programs, are generalizable communicative forms and processes; conversations, as situated performances, are specific responses to the contingencies of the time/space in which any moment or phase of communication actually occurs. Pointing ahead to the construction of a performance accounting scheme, the significance of text can be distilled, for purposes of assessment, into the notion of program. The significance of conversation can be comparably distilled into the quality of pliancy.4 Textual programs operate determinatively when they become hardwired into technologies, for example, as ‘‘information about the length of a minute and the number of minutes in an hour is built directly into the parts of a clock’’ (Beniger, 1986, p. 40). At the level of such information, the story of an hour – its ‘‘accounting’’ – is always the same, any time and everywhere: It is the technical, instrumental ‘‘story’’ of its linear, temporal measurement. In addition to this (a) ‘‘mechanical programming’’ (p. 42) that results in hardwired texts, one can also observe the functions of (b) ‘‘genetic programming’’ encoded in DNA molecules (p. 61); (c) ‘‘cultural programming’’ (p. 42) encoded in cognitive functions, behavioral habits and customs, internalized values and norms; and (d) ‘‘organizational programming’’ encoded in decision rules, procedures, hierarchical authority. James Beniger (1986) illustrated the co-evolution and interdependent functioning of these levels with the example of an urban traffic system. He contrasted the program-based analysis that he advocated with the classical, sociological tradition of assessing personal or group agency in relation to the constraints of structure. The classical tradition would view traffic patterns as the ‘‘interaction of goal-directed behavior by individual commuters, the ‘invisible hand’ of rush-hour traffic’’ (p. 42). An emphasis on programs would highlight the levels of programming involved: genetic programming, encoded in each cell of each commuter and determining the distributions of reaction times and stress levels; cultural programming, encoded in neural structures of the brain and defining certain norms and etiquette of the commute; organizational programming, encoded in traffic law and employer regulations and determining patterns of carpooling and parking; and mechanical programming, encoded

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in timing devices of traffic lights and helping to maintain the larger patterns planned by traffic control engineers. (p. 42)

Cultural and organizational programming are characterized by their relative pliancy – for example, commuter etiquette and workplace norms – when compared with ‘‘hard-wired’’ genetic and mechanical programming. But it is important to recall that modern/postmodern culture and organization, in particular, are constructed on the base, or substratum, of physicalartifactual entities – including technologized communications (Woodward, 2003a) – and depend on the viability of these entities within the environing ‘‘ecological order’’ (Wilden, 1980, p. 517). What we recognize in the organizational context to be ‘‘manifest social behavior’’ (Beniger, 1986, p. 42) is complexly intertwined with the operations of ‘‘multiple, multilevel, and densely interconnected programs.’’ To be programmable means to be partly determinable by input–output rules, but also to embody degrees of pliancy that engender innovation in applying those rules in circumstances requiring ‘‘situated creativity’’ (Joas, 1996, p. 133). Program and pliancy operate instrumentally within economies of means and ends, and expressively within ‘‘life worlds’’ (Hanks, 1996, p. 129). These are ‘‘zones of relevance’’ (p. 132), formed from the motivational interests and desires of social actors, and ‘‘phenomenal fields’’ (p. 137) produced through ‘‘corporeal involvement in the world through the senses and motion, and the world as perceived, that is, the objects that we construct in meaningful encounters.’’ Performance theorist Patrice Pavis (2003) helps to reveal the dynamics of life worlds, zones of relevance, and phenomenal fields by introducing the figure of an ‘‘arrow’’ (p. 18) of experience that organizes ‘‘space-time-action’’ as materiality – that is, ‘‘corporeal presenceythe grain ofyvoice, music, a color, or a rhythmyan aesthetic experience of the material event’’ – and as signification – that is, distillation of materiality into ‘‘an abstract and fixed sign.’’ A stage performance, for example, requires actors and audience members alike to remain, for a time, ‘‘on the side of the signifier,’’ since ‘‘reading the signs in a performance means resisting their sublimation’’ – that is, delaying the culmination of the signifying process, the moment when ‘‘the arrow will reach its target, transforming the object of desire into a signified’’ (pp. 18–19), a discrete meaning. Pavis’ recommended, alternative ‘‘desublimated return to the body of the performance’’ (p. 19) depends on the ability ‘‘to appreciate its materiality for as long as possible’’ (p. 18), by resisting this movement toward meaning. ‘‘To experience aesthetically a circus, a piece of performance art, or any production using a diversity of

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materials, one must allow oneself to be ‘impressed’ by their materiality, and not seek to give them a meaning’’ (p. 19). Performance accounting in organizational settings positions ‘‘actors’’ as both participant and observer at once. Thus, the clown who trips on stage and the officer managing the deck of an aircraft carrier are involved in producing an expressive (aesthetic) moment of organizational performance while also positioning themselves to contribute to an account(ing) of the performance. Corporeal performance and reflexive accounting require dwelling in, and on, the materiality of performance as long as possible, not to be too quick to reduce the event to its ‘‘meaning,’’ perhaps to misconstrue, miscommunicate, and misperform its significance.

Pliant Programming Organizations emerge in and through communication (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, pp. 243–244), which has text as its surface and conversation as its site. This emergence is a creative, open process, but also one involving strategically designed ‘‘reduction’’ (p. 93) of communicative elements in an effort to resolve ‘‘the puzzle of how organization stabilizes in spite of the seemingly problematical outcomes ofyconversational exchange’’ (p. 94) – that is, in the face of the variability and potential unmanageability of the very qualities of pliancy that the argument here valorizes and attempts to recover and extend. A fundamental dialectic of organizational design is selective ‘‘closing’’ and ‘‘opening’’ of the conditions that support operations, meaning making, and relation building. Because success of organizational initiatives depends on multiple conditions and factors, both internal and external to the organization as a (somewhat) bounded system, organizational design must be viewed as ‘‘a form of communication limiting contingency’’ (Jo¨nhill, 2003, p. 27). Traditional organization and management theories held that decisions were discrete, occurrent, organizational events that could be identified rationally, instituted instrumentally, and then would dissolve again into the ongoing flow of time and the outreaching extension of space that constitute the organizational context in full. A revised perspective insists that an event is a constitutive ‘‘programming’’ of organizational time and space in such a way that a decision can have the effect of producing a ‘‘before’’ and ‘‘after’’ (Luhmann, 2003, p. 37) and a corresponding pre-decision and post-decision space – an ‘‘effective environment’’ (Altheide, 1995, p. 16; Woodward, 2003b, p. 426) for organizational activities. In this view ‘‘decisions function as a peculiar medium of communication for organizations’’ (Jo¨nhill, 2003,

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p. 28). Decisions are ways in which organizations act, by design, to spatialize and temporalize their own contingencies. The space–time of organizational context becomes ‘‘closed’’ around a set of designated factors that constitute a sort of ‘‘contingency room’’ (Jo¨nhill, 2003, p. 27). Closure is a way of directedly ‘‘situating’’ creativity. Organizational decision-makers observe, and engage imaginatively, with this space–time similarly to how actors and audiences engage with and observe the settings and events of a theatrical stage. When the ‘‘contingency room’’ is reopened onto the larger settings of organizational and social life, the performances and accountings that have taken place have the effect of contributing new or revised texts; corresponding processes of conversation may be engendered.

A TRANSACTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON PERFORMANCE ACCOUNTING Methodological closure for the purposes of performance accounting proceeds by first establishing an axis of interrelations between two fundamental dimensions of text (program) and conversation (pliancy). The dimension of text extends across a continuum of values from hardwired programs at the upper range, to flexible programs at the lower range; correspondingly, the dimension of conversation extends from pliancy at the upper range to ‘‘compliancy’’ at the lower range, with the latter designation indicating the degree of adaptability that is retained in situations of conformity. Table 1 depicts these relations. Certain categorical modes of communication are likely to prevail within environments associated with each of the quadrants that have been constructed. For example, hardwired textual programming, combined with pliant standards for conversation produce various types of formatted discussions. Flexible textual programming and pliant conversation foster dialogue. Hardwired textual programs and compliant conversational standards generate authoritarian commands. Finally, flexible textual programs in a conversational environment of compliancy support institutional Table 1.

Dimensions of Text and Conversation.

Text Hardwired - flexible programs

Conversation Compliancy - pliancy

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Table 2.

Categorical Modes of Communication.

Text

Conversation

Communicative Mode

Hardwired programs Hardwired programs Flexible programs Flexible programs

Compliancy Pliancy Compliancy Pliancy

Commands Formatted discussions Institutional rituals Dialogue

rituals such as lectures with a time-constrained, structured questions and answers session to follow. Table 2 presents these modes. Each of these communicative modes derives its utility from the construction of organizational contexts that are considered to be compatible – materially, ideologically, relationally – with the supposed dynamics of contemporary social formations. For example, authoritative command – as organizational structure and process – is associated with rigid hierarchies such as military discipline, and develops in conformity with the social, cultural, and economic factors that legitimate such rule. Contrasting sets of factors support dialogue as a communicative expression of egalitarian social relations based on mutual-personal recognition and collective solidarity. All four quadrants can be thought of as categorical ways in which movement, exchange, and transformation occur – of material-artifactual entities, of information and ideologies, and of relations and networks. The notion of communicative ‘‘transaction’’ (Woodward, 2001b) conveys the broad, variable, contextual possibilities of movement, exchange, and transformation across the dimensions of the triadic field. The proposed philosophical and methodological conception of transaction derives from John Dewey’s pragmatic transactionalism, which insisted on an encompassing view of ‘‘Fact such that no one of its constituents can be adequately specified as fact apart from the specification of other constituents of the full subjectmatter [sic]’’ (Dewey & Bentley, 1949, p. 122). This ‘‘contextually saturated,’’ transactional view contrasts with dyadic, interactive perspectives that rely on ‘‘procedure such that its inter-acting constituents are set up in inquiry as separate ‘facts,’ each in independence of the presence of others’’ (p. 122). Transactionalism is directed toward ‘‘opening’’ the investigation of subject matter to account for the broad context of performances. However, this commitment does not preclude a ‘‘self-referential closure’’ (Luhmann, 1995, p. 9) that allows for particular dimensions of a performance to be examined in analytical detail. A guide to conducting such methodological closure is the work of economist Oliver Williamson (1985, p. 1), a contemporary advocate

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of transactionalism, who provides an operationally closed conception of transaction as what ‘‘occurs when a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface’’. Williamson follows Commons (1934/1990, p. 58) in positioning transaction as the basic unit of organizational activity, while emphasizing these ‘‘key dimensions’’ (Williamson, 1995, pp. 187–188) of transactions: ‘‘asset specificity, uncertainty, and frequency’’ (Williamson, 1985, p. 52). ‘‘Asset specificity’’ refers to investments of physical and human resources that are specific to a particular transaction, in contrast with general assets, which could be applied programmatically to any variety of exchanges. Williamson (1985) explicated the concept by citing Michael Polanyi’s (1962) notion of ‘‘personal knowledge,’’ which included ‘‘illustrations of industrial arts and craftsmanship in which the skills in question are so deeply embedded in the experienced workforce that they can be known or inferred by others only with great difficulty – if at all’’ (Williamson, 1985, p. 53). ‘‘Deeply embedded’’ communicative capabilities involve interpretive and productive practices and modes of conversation that require pliancy from communicators – that is, the skills of dialogue and responsiveness to the challenges and opportunities of situated creativity. Asset specificity of communications would apply most clearly in the case of relationships that organizations build with stakeholders and clients on the basis of personalized contacts that pay special attention to situational particularities. Two-way flows of communications and an equitable balance of power, that is, ‘‘symmetrical’’ relations (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, pp. 42 ff.), are typically required to make such contacts sustainable. Williamson (1985, p. 524) depicted the second key dimension of ‘‘uncertainty’’ also in terms of situational concerns, that the ‘‘economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in particular circumstances of time and place’’ (cites Hayek, 1948). With respect to organizational communication and its contributions to decision making and other organizational activities, the uncertainty associated with changing circumstances would be addressed more successfully by the ability to apply textually programmed, communicative solutions in pliant, adaptable ways rather than as strict protocols for action. The third key dimension of ‘‘frequency’’ concerns the higher costs of developing specialized, situational resources rather than more generalized ones. The extent, or frequency, of utilization of these specialized resources becomes an important economic consideration, since their value is circumscribed situationally in ways that more widely applicable assets are not. Additionally, these resources are more difficult to pinpoint and measure than are ‘‘nonspecific’’ (Williamson, 1985, p. 79) assets.

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The general design question is the extent to which an organization should rely on situationally specific skills of pliant communication – for example, relationship building, participatory management, and corporate responsibility – and how much of a commitment should be made to programmable, or programmatic types of communication. Communicative sustainability concerns the relative contributions of pliant, situationally specific and programmable communication not only to ‘‘provisioning’’ within present circumstances but also with respect to future conditions and opportunities to extend personal and collective welfare and freedom. Williamson (1985, p. 33) introduced a ‘‘contracting scheme’’ that allows for comparison of asset specific vs. asset nonspecific transaction requirements. This approach can be adapted as a way to begin gauging sustainable ways of ‘‘contracting’’ for the various communicative modes. First, predicate a ‘‘general purpose technology’’ (Williamson, 1985, p. 32) that could be deployed to implement and govern communication modes that serve nonspecific, generalizeable purposes through instrumental, programmable performances – mainly authoritative command modes but also aspects of structured debates and institutionalized rituals. Then predicate a ‘‘special purpose technology’’ that could be deployed to implement and govern communication modes that serve asset-specific, pliant requirements through expressive performances – mainly dialogue, but also aspects of rituals and debates. Technology is used here to convey the possibility of implementing general or special purposes through a unified, integrative system or process. Major expenditures of energy and social effort associated with the general purpose technology would involve designing the system and putting it in place. Then various forms of economizing could begin to accrue, as long as the contextual conditions pertaining to nonspecific, instrumental performances remained relatively constant. If the general purpose technology could sustain its ability to program communications successfully while constraining the demand for pliancy to address circumstances requiring asset specificity, the communication system could evolve a capacity ‘‘to act independently, in the absence of its human partner’’ (J. Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 161), that is without regard to the particular people who occupy the roles of communicators, which roles could become increasingly nonspecific. Possibilities for ‘‘autopoietic’’ (Luhmann, 1989, p. 143) functioning – that is, the evolution of self-organizing, self-reproducing, and self-regulating capacities and operations – would emerge as the central promise of this technology. The special purpose technology, on the contrary, would be tied to its specific circumstances of use in ways that preclude such cybernetic functioning. Its particular applicability to circumstances of cooperative

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dialogue, as an active, participatory, and personal mode of transaction, would limit the number of rationalized elements that could be reproduced as part of the special purpose technology. The communicative demands of dialogue would remain situationally specific, requiring basic reformulation or contextualized realization for each usage. Managers could be inclined to address specific circumstances with general purpose technology to seek economies through programmed communications. But this tendency would be offset by a counter impetus to deploy special purpose technology to address particularities that arise in what were thought to be nonspecific circumstances. In actual conditions of practice, the two polar positions would likely yield to a mixed technology alternative. Table 3 depicts these alternatives. The mixed technology model may appear to obviate the usefulness of distinctions between more tightly programmed and more pliant modes of communication. However, further analysis of transactional dynamics suggests a likely movement from general to mixed, toward special technology with its asset-specific practices and two-way, symmetrical communicative values. For example, authoritarian command depends on non-resistant, therefore passive, receipt of messages; but passive recipients experience difficulty translating interpretive compliance into effective actions, since all action requires a degree of personal initiative and motivation. A transactional perspective points out how meaning making, relation- and identity-building, and transformation of the material-artifactual environment through action are complexly interconnected dimensions of human activity and experience. Furthermore, as meaning making, relation building, and material action are directed by personal and group motives, communication moves beyond calibration of stereotyped responses, to encompass the complex ways in Table 3.

Mixed Technology Performance Accounting for Organizational Communication.

General Purpose Technology Programmed communication Instrumental performance Accounting by measurement construct

Mixed Technology

Pliant, programmable communication Expressive and instrumental performance Accounting by narrative dramatic logic and measurement construct

Special Purpose Technology Pliant communication Expressive performance Accounting by narrative/ dramatic logic

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which stakeholders formulate issues according to their own cognitive styles and languages. Consensus about equitable outcomes, rather than mere acquiescence, becomes essential to legitimation. Symmetry, as an equitable balancing of the attributes and outcomes of transaction, calls personal knowledge into play. A ‘‘measure of participation’’ (Polanyi, 1962, p. 152) is basic to all knowledge, but participation ‘‘becomes altogether predominant’’ when personal knowledge derives from two-way symmetrical contact.

CONCLUSION: OPENING THE TRANSACTIONAL VIEW TO THE ‘‘INTANGIBLES’’ OF CONTEXT A transactional approach must match methodological closure with a movement toward ‘‘the widening phases of knowledge, the broadening of system within the limits of observation and report’’ (Dewey & Bentley, 1949, p. 122). In the organizational setting, closure around text and conversation reveals how these are constitutive elements of communicative sustainability. Interpersonal communication always includes the possibility of ‘‘interrupting’’ (Pinchevski, 2005) dominant speakers, thus protecting the potential for resistance, critique, and movement toward dialogue. But what broader dynamics can be expected to play out beyond the organizational setting? Richard N. Adams (1988) suggested that participatory qualities of communication are always in jeopardy, and for reasons that have to do with possible interdependencies between energy use and communication. Modern societies, when compared with traditional ones, ‘‘require much more energy to be expended in achieving a common culture’’ (p. 138). Expressive ritualization in ‘‘low-energy societies has a high-energy counterpart that is crucial to the regulatory process and that is particularly manifest in television, cinema, radio, and other energy-costly means of ritualization of behavior’’ (p. 138). The modern ‘‘regulatory sector’’ exercises increased control to address the possibility of ‘‘individuals in high-energy societies ycontributing to uncontrollable societal fluctuations’’ (p. 137), especially through such activities as ‘‘popular demonstrations, mass political actions, and mass religious movements.’’ Individuals and groups in high technology contexts possess augmented power to disrupt social order, and forces of control act according to a preemptive doctrine. The continuing invention of antiterrorist methods, of intelligence operations against citizens of countries under the rationale that such knowledge is necessary for internal security, of regulations concerning educational methods and goals, of ways of diverting

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leisure time into ‘profitable’ channels, etc. – all are devices to keep the individuals in high-energy societies from contributing to uncontrollable societal fluctuations. (p. 137)

As such controls become instituted programmatically within societies, the defining qualities of the various modes of communication can undergo change. Rituals are transformed. Structured forms of communicative exchange, such as debates, shift from a concern with the semantics of arguments to the ‘‘syntactics’’ of style and image presentation. Understanding of what constitutes ‘‘dialogue’’ departs from the standards of mutualpersonal, reciprocal autonomy over communicative process and contributions of content that formerly characterized it. Systemic changes proliferate. The question of what precise qualities of communication can and should be sustained is ever renewed.

NOTES 1. The intended reference is to ‘‘a school of philosophical thought – American pragmatism – and not to that shortsighted, allegedly, ‘practical minded’ attitude towards the world that is a major obstacle to environmentally responsible behavior in our time’’ (Parker, 1996, p. 21). 2. Taylor and Van Every (2000) have advocated a ‘‘‘flatland’ perspective on organization’’ (p. 141) that ‘‘rejects the macro-micro assumption of two levels of reality’’ (p. 143). This chapter accepts this orientation but retains the micro, meso, and macro designations at the outset as a means of situating the analysis in relation to conventional sociological terms. The chapter argues for a triadic view that, again, has many similarities with Taylor and Van Every’s approach. 3. Information is sometimes conceptualized in broad terms such as observable variation – that is, a difference that makes a difference (Bateson, 1972, pp. 271–272) – or as a means of uncertainty reduction (Ritchie, 1991, p. 3); or it is conceived and formulated specifically to be measurable – for example, as the statistically determinable efficiency of a code based on a circumscribed set of signs (p. 5). 4. Austin Henderson and Jed Harris introduced the notion of ‘‘pliant systems’’ (Kaasgaard, Henderson, and Harris, 2000, p. 116) to convey the way in which even ‘‘rigid technology’’ (p. 113) may be used in a ‘‘pliant way’’ to ‘‘embed the computing process into the social process in a way that gives the social activities much more control over the local circumstances of computing.’’

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THE INTER-PLAY OF POWER AND META-POWER IN THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ‘‘ENTREPRENEURIAL’’ PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS: A PROCESSUAL ORDERING PERSPECTIVE Mark W. Dirsmith, Sajay Samuel, Mark A. Covaleski and James B. Heian ABSTRACT The sociology of professions literature has theorized that the professions are undergoing a dramatic transformation from being traditional professions to ‘‘entrepreneurial professions’’ populated by ‘‘knowledge workers.’’ In part, this transformation is associated with the commodification and commercialization of professional endeavor. Our purpose is to enlist the processual ordering perspective to examine the ongoing transformation of the Big 5 (and following the collapse of Arthur Andersen during our field study)/4 public accounting firms to become entrepreneurial firms populated by global knowledge experts. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 347–387 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033023

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More specifically, we focus on the inter-play of power and meta-power across three moments of the social construction process – externalization, objectivation, and internalization – through which the ethos of entrepreneurialism is being socially constructed within these firms, their individual members, and in the public accounting profession. Finally, we explore impressions gleaned from our qualitative, naturalistic field study.

Professional endeavor and the nature of expertise are widely seen as going through a fundamental transformation as evidenced by the emergence of a new vocabulary that includes such evocative terms as: ‘‘knowledge society,’’ ‘‘global business community,’’ ‘‘virtual corporation,’’ ‘‘information age,’’ and ‘‘symbolic analyst’’ (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1996; Zuboff, 1988). Knowledge has, in turn, become ‘‘a strategic resource of social power and control,’’ leading to the perception that ‘‘knowledge work and knowledge workers are now key issues’’ (Blackler, Reed, & Whitaker, 1993, p. 851), and that ‘‘expertise is one of the primary arenas in which struggles to control the organization and management of work are fought out’’ (Reed, 1996, p. 574). Importantly for purposes of our field study, theorists have also recently suggested a fundamental and widespread transformation of professional identity: from that of the traditional, disinterested expert to an organizationbased knowledge worker or entrepreneur (Abbott, 1988; Brint, 1994; Dezalay & Garth, 2004; Reed, 1996). Within such entrepreneurial professions, expertise is fashioned into a mobile, but expensive commodity that can be deployed wherever and whenever required, for ‘‘y it is the putative universality, codifiability, neutrality and mobility of modern expertise that sets it apart from the localism, particularism and stability characteristic of traditional expertise’’ (Reed, 1996, p. 576, 581; see also Alvesson, 1993; Covaleski, Dirsmith, Heian, & Samuel, 1998; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Grey, Anderson-Gough, & Robson, 2006; Power, 1997; Wolfe, 2002). One result of this transformation, however, is that the knowledge expert may be subjected to increased regulatory scrutiny (Brint, 1994, p. 204; Reed, 1996, p. 784). The processual ordering branch of symbolic interaction (Hall, 1972, 1987; Maines, 1982, 2003; Maines & Charlton, 1985; Prus, 1999; Strauss, 1978, 1993; Ulmer, 1997, 2005) is broadly concerned with the mutual constitution of social structures and social interactions. Drawing partly on the social constructionist perspective (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), it focuses on the constitution of social realities in and through such interaction strategies as

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negotiation, conflict, manipulation, coercion, exchange, bargaining, collusion, power brokering, and rhetoric, which are circumscribed by and interpenetrated with existing rule systems, norms, laws, and societal expectations. Thus conceived, within our setting, the efforts of professional services firms to implement new control systems, or profession-level efforts to develop new types of services, or Federal efforts to regulate professional services, are not seen as disassociated, or somehow located ‘‘out there,’’ exogenous to constitutive social processes, but rather, impact and are impacted by the day-to-day activities of the individual professional (Manning, 1992). Within this theoretical tradition, power is treated as a situationally embedded, inter-subjective and collectively enacted human phenomenon involving the control of such strategically important resources as information. Meta-power, in turn, is theorized as crucial to the shaping of social orders, and refers to those activities that establish or modify the rules of the game by which social actors have to play to attain their ends. However, the inter-relationship between power and meta-power has largely escaped research attention. Taken together, interpretations of social realities through the prism of the interplay between power and meta-power promises a better understanding of the complex social processes involved in the contemporary transformation of the professional endeavor. The purpose of our chapter is to enlist the processual ordering perspective, specifically its treatment of power and meta-power, to examine the potential transformation of the public accounting profession from a traditional to an entrepreneurial profession, as expressed in a central research question: What role does the inter-play of power and meta-power play in transforming public accounting from a traditional to an entrepreneurial profession?

By addressing this research question, we also hope to extend the processual ordering perspective by probing how application of meta-power in the form of centrally orchestrated control systems shapes existing power relations in the form of mentoring relations, as well as the reverse, thereby suggesting the mutual social constitution of meta-power and power.

A PROCESSUAL ORDERING PERSPECTIVE OF POWER AND META-POWER Power has long been recognized as important to processual orders (Blumer, 1954), wherein ‘‘power and control themselves are open to negotiation, and

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beliefs about who has how much and what kind of power may not be shared among the parties to an interaction’’ (Fine, 1984, p. 251; Wolfe, 2002). Power is seen as an inter-subjective and collectively enacted human phenomenon continually brought into existence and subsequently transformed through negotiation and rhetoric (Prus, 1999). Strauss (1993, p. 88), in turn, observed that: Although arrangements among organizational members may be working well, changes of broader structural and organizational conditions inevitably bring about the reworking of arrangements. Their stability depends upon the structural/organizational conditions present when they are being worked out and then made operative. In response to these conditions, the workers have the ability to manipulate, use to their advantage, avoid, or in other ways manage material conditions.

Interpreting power as relational, Hall (1972) (see also Klapp, 1964) recommended that four dimensions of power be examined: (1) the negotiation of material resources; (2) the rhetorical strategies used to define the terms of debate and manage impressions; (3) the manner in which the flow of information is strategically controlled; and (4) the manner in which social support for a course of action is symbolically mobilized. He theorized that while much political bargaining occurs backstage in the form of controlling the flow of information, much of it appears in public view as various social actors attempt to symbolically mobilize support or reject an action agenda as well as manage their image. A key to our research on the public accounting profession is Hall’s argument that organizations are structures of meta-power – a term which ‘‘refers to altering the types of game actors play y to change the distribution of resources or the conditions governing interactions’’ (1997, p. 405; see also Hall, 2003). Meta-power does not refer to the strategies that participants employ to achieve their ends within a situation. But rather, according to Altheide (2003, pp. 16–17) (see also Cahill, 2003, p. 53) ‘‘meta-power is about the ability to control the game that others play. What is critical for any analysis of change and action, then, is the way in which power is communicated.’’ Meta-power is thus a key to unlock the ‘‘meso’’ domain of social life, where macro-level, or large scale processes are articulated at the micro-social realm of individual interactions (Maines, 1982, 2003). Indeed, the notions of ‘‘networks’’ and ‘‘meta-power’’ together highlight the active, contested, and conditional ties through which ‘‘conditioned and constituted activity in the past and at a distance can have consequences and create conditions for future sites’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 401). Hall described five types of meta-power with which to analyze social action. The first type of meta-power explicitly focuses on ‘‘structuring

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situations, relationships, and activities’’ and includes the deliberate, active, and intentional efforts to create or modify distant situations by, for example, forming committees, selecting members, and setting agendas for the future. The second type is ‘‘delegation,’’ which is necessary to ‘‘produce cooperative or compliant behavior, often by getting others to embrace the intentions of their superiors’’ (1997, p. 413). However, since delegation requires that subordinates exercise some discretion, it can result in subverting the purposes of the superior, such that ‘‘a central paradox of meta-power is that it is both extended and threatened by delegation’’ (1997, p. 407; Neitz, 2003, p. 9). Within the public accounting domain, this hierarchical relationship involves two components – administrative partners who seek to impose centralized control to enhance firm efficiency and thereby earn profits, and practitioner or line partners who deliver client service, earn fees, and seek to preserve their autonomy to both serve their firm’s clientele and preserve their own power (Freidson, 1986), thus setting up the inter-play of meta-power and power within the Big 5/4. The purposive construction of organizational culture through ‘‘intention and language’’ is the third form of meta-power. ‘‘To assure valued intentions and actions, organizational respect, smooth interactions and committed selves, such discursive forms as ‘charters’ provide not only a ‘vocabulary of motives,’ but also a means to motivate and mobilize collective endeavors’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 411). ‘‘Rules and conventions’’ is the fourth type of metapower and bespeaks those culturally normative and often codified practices that fix the terrain of everyday behavior. From ‘‘rule-making’’ in quasi legislative bodies to traffic rules, socially accepted conventions provide both a ‘‘cause and a rationale for behavior’’ (p. 409). The fifth type of meta-power is ‘‘strategic agency,’’ which refers to how an actor places himself/herself within the vector of social interactions as a necessary relay. Here, the strategic agent serves to discipline social interactions by specifying the range and extent of discretion conferred to other agents. Hall (1987, 2003) (see also Hall & McGinty, 1997) concluded that while interactionists have tended to predominantly study power, research would more fully reflect a processual orientation by examining the play of power and meta-power, for example, by focusing on the role of such ‘‘rules and conventions’’ as formalized control systems in shaping the rhetoric and strategic actions of those controlled at a distance (see also Wolfe, 2002). More specifically, Hall (2003, p. 63) observed that Interationism can benefit from broader and deeper exploration of the consequences of contextualization y Institutions, relatively bounded domains that are socially organized

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and cultured, provide historical and structural contexts in which much collective activity takes place. But it is also critical that we not reify institutional influence, and, therefore, show its socially constructed, historically contingent nature and the processes by which it conditions, structures, and cultures collective action. Similarly, we must be attentive to avoiding monolithic objectification and point out conditions for change as well as stability and [remain] open to the contradictions, conflicts, loose coupling, and multiple perspectives.

Hall (2003) also urged research on the processes attendant to globalization, and on ‘‘how institutional processes are stretched to coordinate activity and interactions with those who are distant,’’ especially within multinational organizations (pp. 63–64; see also Prus, 1999). Thus, our analysis focuses on the rhetorical strategies employed by multiple parties having differing perspectives in representing positions to affect and resist change within the public accounting profession and the largest, international professional services firms in the world (Abbott, 1988) – the Big 5/4. In so doing, we will examine how structures of meta-power in the form of centralized control systems developed and applied by administrative partners influence power relations in the form of mentoring relationships among practitioner personnel within these firms, and also how the application of power in interpreting and resisting regimes of meta-power effectively transform them. Moreover, we will examine the accounting profession’s efforts to develop a new regime of metapower in the form of a world credential, and its resistance by various vested interests exercising their own power. We will, in turn, employ the frameworks of power and meta-power offered by Hall (1972, 1997) and Strauss (1993) to organize and entitle our field observations as sub-sections.

RESEARCH METHODS Our research may be described as an interpretive field study within which we implemented a full array of strategies designed to ensure the trustworthiness of observations and interpretations (Berg, 2004; Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Strauss & Corbin, 1990; Van Maanen, 1988). We examined certain facets of structural and social change, and resistance to this change vis-a`-vis the control practices deployed by the Big 5/4 public accounting firms, the profession, regulators, politicians, and the press, using the language of the participants and conducting analyses in a largely inductive, descriptive manner. The organizations studied were each of the Big 5/4 public accounting firms that included Arthur Andersen (that collapsed during our study),

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Deloitte and Touche (2007), Ernst and Young (2007), KPMG (2007) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (2007). These firms are among the largest professional services in the world, represent the most under-researched professions associated with commercial enterprise (Abbott, 1988), and are among the primary candidates for becoming entrepreneurial professional service firms (Covaleski et al., 1998; Reed, 1996). We held semi-structured interviews with 223 individuals that often involved repeated interviews with key informants over a number of years, using a theoretical sampling plan (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Interviews ranged from one to six hours, averaging more than two hours, although one participant was accompanied throughout his professional engagements and civic involvements across four, nonconsecutive work weeks. Participants included, in ascending order, staff members, seniors, and especially managers and partners, predominantly from five eastern cities, one mid-western city, and one west coast metropolitan area, although administrative partners from Canadian, U.K. and Hong Kong offices were also interviewed. Managers and partners included both practice office and administrative personnel in national and international offices. For administrators, the positions held included of international firm directors and deputy directors of accounting and auditing, national office personnel up through the rank of two recently retired senior managing partners, and managing partners at the senior, deputy, regional, and practice office levels. Questions asked were invented in vivo (Van Maanen, 1988). Data collection also included self-reported life histories and daily diaries recorded on participant controlled tape recorders over six months, direct observation, and an extensive review of archival material pertaining to specific individual partner plans and specific practice office business plans expressed in terms of U.S. and international firm goals. The archival materials also included publicly available material and internal firm materials such as firm policies, firm websites, and marketing and recruitment material. We supplemented this data with a review of extensive press coverage (Altheide, 1996, 2003) of such important events as lawsuits against the firms, proposed regulations, audit failures, the demise of Arthur Andersen, as well as the Congressional Record. We also examined regulator and Congressional investigation hearing minutes, and resulting proposed and passed regulations, as well as campaign contributions to key Congressional and U.S. Presidential candidates for the 2000 election cycle (Center for Responsive Politics, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, 2006d, 2006e). Especially significant archival material included conference calls with the Arthur Andersen CEO following the Enron debacle; video clips describing

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the AICPA’s ‘‘Vision Project’’; AICPA material on its proposed IGC (International Global Credential) credential; SEC regulations and speeches on trends in the profession.

FIELD OBSERVATIONS OF A PROFESSION IN TRANSITION Consistent with the social constructionist orientation of processual ordering, we have organized our field observations into three ‘‘moments’’ of the social construction process (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, pp. 60–62): externalization (the production of stable social orders in and through human activity), objectivation (the process by which the externalized products of human activity attain the shape of objective reality), and internalization (the process by which the objectivated social world is retrojected into consciousness through the process of socialization). Within each moment, we have further organized our analysis into meta-power and power subsections, and then further sub-divided these into sub-subsections using Hall’s (1972, 1997) and Strauss’ (1993) theoretical frameworks. Moment I: The ‘Externalization’ of the Entrepreneurial Professional Application of Meta-Power Changes in Broader Structural and Organizational Conditions (Strauss, 1993, p. 88). Consistent with traditional expressions of professionalism, the public accounting profession once adhered closely to the rhetoric of ‘‘client service ideal,’’ the ‘‘judgment of experts,’’ and the inviolable ‘‘autonomy of professionals.’’ Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, the accounting profession was buffeted by significant disturbances. Influenced by a number of social, economic, and political forces, the accounting firms consolidated, with five large firms auditing the vast majority of the large public corporations in the United States and internationally (culminating in the Big 4 after the collapse of Arthur Andersen; WSJ, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 2002a). Moreover, stagnation in the audit market (AICPA, 1999a), and the heightened competition among the firms spawned by the threat of antitrust action by the Federal government contributed to: (a) an increased emphasis on the efficiency with which audits were performed; (b) the increased reliance on information technologies in the accounting procedures; (c) an extraordinarily high staff turnover of 75% in the first

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five years; (d) the promotion of managers to partners with fewer years of accumulated experience; (e) an increasing number of lawsuits ranging to hundreds of millions of dollars against the firms; and (f ) regulatory efforts of the U.S. Congress and the SEC, most recently in response to the widely publicized financial statement frauds of Enron and WorldCom (Emerson, 2000; Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, 1985a, 1985b; WJS, 1985a, 1985b, 2000a, 2000b). This altered economic/social/regulatory milieu suggests that the zeitgeist of professional endeavor had been transformed by society’s redefinitions of how the profession was perceived, controlled, and compensated. It became clear to firm administrators that the firms had to be reorganized to remain economically viable and that the firms had to proactively engage in better managing their own and the profession’s image (Hall, 1972, 1997; Klapp, 1964; Strauss, 1993). Structuring Situations, Relationships, and Activities (Hall, 1997, p. 408). In characterizing the auditing environment over recent decades, one line partner observed that, ‘‘the costs go up, the revenues are down, and the vise is tightening.’’ Consequently, the accounting profession increasingly understood itself in predominantly economic terms. When audits are viewed within the pincers of costs and revenues, there appear only two ways to loosen the vice: cutting the costs of completing an audit and/or raising the audit fees, which is inherently problematic in a highly competitive environment. And so, focus was placed on cutting costs by implementing centralized control. Participants stressed that financial results had become central to the administrative evaluation of their performance as professionals, marked by implementation of practice control systems that were centrally orchestrated by administrative partners within the national offices of the firms. These systems were essentially forms of meta-power for exercising centralized control at a distance, across time and space (Hall, 1997, 2003). To establish better control over partners, administrators circumscribed partners’ actions in a larger whole by arranging firm, office, and individual goals into a hierarchical structure in which each partner’s objectives were nested in the local office’s general business plan, which factored in the local business environment and client base (Altheide, 2003). But, such nesting was not universally applauded, as noted by one partner: Every year when they called you in on your review, it’s always, Well, you did great this year. You did wonderful. Now, what are you going to do to do twenty percent more next year?’’ Felt great the first couple of times they said it, but by your sixth or seventh year in [partnership), and you’re doing twenty percent more every year, there’s got to be a point when you say, ‘‘Gee, how much more can I do?’’

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Delegation (Hall, 1997, p. 413). We found that partners’ objectives were typically expressed in such quantitative terms as ‘‘profits per partner,’’ with one regional managing partner observing that ‘‘by changing the words used to describe the line partners’ activities, or even to change the meaning of familiar words, the firm hoped to change their behavior.’’ Line partners, in turn, documented a commitment to these objectives in writing and were then monitored by administrative partners as to how well they accomplished them. Standards of performance included specific dollar sales targets, targeted realization rates, and client billings. Partners then began the budget cycle, reporting their results at year end and possibly during the year to the office managing partners. Without the enforced focus on these formal goals, administrative partners feared that the line partners would perform ineffectively. According to another regional partner, practice offices were subjected to periodic visits by the firm’s deputy managing partner to ascertain if the office was ‘‘meeting plan’’ and begin remedial actions when it was not. These plans focused almost solely on financial goals. This trend encouraged firm members to emphasize the service needs of clients and the economic goals of the firm through formal management control measures. An international administrative partner reported that his goal was to develop a ‘‘one-firm concept.’’ He reported that his firm’s long-term goal was for him to approve personally every audit proposal for new, large clients – a responsibility traditionally reserved for the managing partner of each local practice office. This practice emphasized that it was the firm that rendered client service, not the practice partner. It struck at the line partners’ principal means of exercising power –proprietary knowledge of the client, graphically described by one regional managing partner as ‘‘cutting the line partner’s nuts off.’’ Intentions and Language: A Vocabulary of Motives (Hall, 1997, p. 411). The administrative partners stressed documenting the goals of the practice partners on paper as a form of quasi-contracts, thus making them factual, visible, and enforceable if they departed from established firm norms. A regional managing partner observed that: When we have monthly sales meetings with all the partners [in the region] every month, each partner has sales goals and targets. And every month we have a report that comes out, it’s very fancy, and it’s got a bar chart, it’s got it by partner’s name, and it shows what he did last year in terms of total revenues, what he’s doing year to date this year, what he did year to date last year, and what his plan is for this year [which he termed, tellingly ‘‘entrepreneurial reports’’]. Every month he sees the peer pressure because he’s

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got to get up, and there’s a flip chart up there and an over head, and he’s got to explain why he’s behind plan or ahead of plan.

A participant, who was assigned as a ‘‘turn-around’’ managing partner for a troubled office, informed the line partners of the office’s new strategic financial goals, which had been specifically ‘‘targeted’’ for him by the national office, thus establishing a minimum threshold to be cleared. He also told them that if they could not ‘‘buy into’’ and achieve these goals, they should consider themselves ‘‘counseled out’’ of the firm. Many did, in fact resign. A senior administrative partner reported that market stagnation caused him to focus on modifying one of the few available endogenous factors to increase partners’ compensation by ‘‘right-sizing’’ (i.e., terminating) hundreds of partners to reach a number more supportable by a stable or even declining revenue base: Being a partner to many represents a very significant goal and has significant stature. However, as a result of a specific effort over the past several years to improve the value of partnership by controlling the number of partners – that is, improving financial leverage, substantially improving the earnings of partners, and instituting partner wealth-building programs – the status of partners has substantially improved.

Consequently, ‘‘right-sizing’’ the number of practice partners was redefined by administrative partners as improving the ‘‘financial leverage’’ of each practice partner for the partner’s own financial good and the greater good of the firm. The orchestration of professional endeavor reached deep into the daily lives of line auditors, transcending the boundaries between work and private life. As noted by a partner during a resignation interview, the firm ‘‘took over my life,’’ for example, by routing all calls to his home when he was sick and routinely having a series of Federal Express packages awaiting his arrival at vacation destinations, thereby indicating to him that ‘‘you’re supposed to be a consummate professional 24/7, 7/52’’ – confirming that control was indeed exercised across time and space (Hall, 1997). A regional partner proudly proclaimed that he had even sent the ‘‘entrepreneurial reports’’ home to the partners’ spouses ‘‘to add a little more pressure’’ for achieving the individual’s, office’s, and region’s objectives. Application of Power Social Support of and Resistance to a Course of Action: The Central Paradox of Meta-Power (Hall, 1972). Resisting administrators’ efforts, practice partners believed that the agenda of administrative partners to exercise centralized control was subordinate to their own client service demands,

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reporting that their clients’ business and financial reporting cycle effectively ‘‘calendarized’’ their efforts, not the timetable of the national office. Line partners essentially used the discourse of ‘‘client service’’ and ‘‘professional– bureaucratic conflict’’ to reaffirm their autonomy and professional stature. Their resistance was rooted in the argument that it was the audit team and not the national office which produced quality client service and, perhaps more importantly, fees. One regional managing partner observed, ‘‘Partners do not give up power for money [which accrues from meeting targeted goals]. They’ve made more money as partners than they ever anticipated, so client base is their protection, their identity, and they refuse to give up this security for the good of the firm.’’ An office division director concluded that such centralized systems symbolized the conflict between being a professional and being housed in a business, and revolved around the commercialization of public accounting: To the extent that you get into the administrative role, you’ve left the profession. You’re not dealing with all that technical stuff, the client problems and their business. You’re dealing with your own business problems. I would like to know how they resolve the conflict between their being a professional and a pure business man.

Practice personnel interviews suggested that mentoring relationships served simultaneously as an articulation of and a locus of resistance to formal control systems applied within the firms. Participants described mentoring as a predominantly social process that helped them better understand and survive in an active political milieu. Mentoring relations were reported to be quite long-term in nature, possibly lasting entire careers and into retirement, and spanning multiple generations, with the longest linked relationship represented in our study being five generations; one firm senior managing partner, for example, reported receiving advice from a legendary mentor who had retired over 20 years earlier. Herein, far ranging career and even lifestyle counseling were reported to take place and were, in earlier phases, focused on politically advocating for and negotiating the difficult path to partnership, and, later, in forming an elite management cadre. Informants reported that sensitive information flowed in both directions. Mentors’ guidance covered prote´ge´s’ relations with clients and key partners, the commercial aspects of the firm, but more importantly how these translated into the prote´ge´’s agenda, the prote´ge´’s appearance and behavior, and the politics of practice. Prote´ge´s, in turn, reported on how other firm members perceived their mentors’ placement in the organization and who saw them as ‘‘on the bus’’ or ‘‘on track’’ in maintaining their status during

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the firm’s change of ‘‘destination’’ toward an entrepreneurial professional services firm. Rhetorical Strategies Used to Define the Terms of Debate and Manage Impressions (Hall, 1972). The economics of auditing was one major focus of mentoring but, in contrast to the formalized control system, was treated as a symbolic display rather than as an instrument (Altheide, 2003). Participants suggested that mentoring provided timely and roughly accurate information about compensation for individuals across all ranks, the value of partners’ shares and, hence, compensation, utilization (charged time as a percentage of standard available hours), and billing rates of specific individuals. It also provided useful but inexact information about impending promotions and ‘‘out counselings,’’ prospective client acquisitions and, particularly, losses, realization rates for specific clients, engagement and budget information for specific clients, and office, firm, and engagement profitability. The economics of auditing had influenced the language used in mentoring relationships by emphasizing the importance of ‘‘the business’’ to prote´ge´s. Such phrases and issues as ‘‘new audit products,’’ ‘‘homogenization of services,’’ ‘‘value added auditing,’’ and ‘‘internationalization’’ or ‘‘globalization of practice’’ entered the mentoring discourse and conveyed crucial meaning for prote´ge´s and mentors alike. Strategic Control of Information (Hall, 1972). Mentors asserted that mentoring necessarily involves instruction, in practical, politics and revolves around the issue of power in a number of ways. Helpful mentors instruct prote´ge´s on office and firm politics and advice, contributed to raising their visibility with important partners so that prote´ge´s may enjoy a favorable image. Elements of advantageous visibility include assignments to the ‘‘right’’ clients and bringing in significant new business – significant in terms of both revenue and prestige. A partner observed that a good mentor ‘‘looks after the numbers of his disciples [generated by the formalized control system] and defends them against the higher-ups in the promotion process.’’ In other words, a mentor informally communicates and translates the political aspects of the control system practices and norms applied to the line partner to give the appearance of complying with them, but, in so doing, may have engendered effects that extended beyond mere surface appearance. Citing Gerald Ford’s observation that he was not presidential until he became president, a practice office managing partner asserted (with the emphases being his) that ‘‘promotion creates the partner’’ and that

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his role as mentor was to ‘‘create opportunities in people,’’ whereas his job as managing partner was to ‘‘give them the means to succeed.’’ Paradox of Meta-Power’s Central Paradox (Hall, 1997, p. 407). Although mentors advocated for prote´ge´s, it appears that the business came to influence the language the line partner mentors used and, more broadly, how these practitioners gathered, assimilated, and attributed meaning to their lived experiences. Through the verbalization of control practices in terms relevant to the prote´ge´, these techniques became practicable for mentors and prote´ge´s alike, both of whom had to talk about and act on them. They also became part of the prote´ge´s’ and mentors’ identities. In so doing, mentoring became a metaphorical ‘‘double-edged sword’’ for the firm – at once politicizing or, more accurately, recognizing the covert political climate for what it was, and encouraging prote´ge´s to gain an appreciation for the business, ironically by gaming the formalized system. One rookie partner recounted his experiences with two office managing partner mentors. The first managing partner was described as coming from the ‘‘old school,’’ and consequently supported a ‘‘client service ideal’’ and a corresponding professional autonomy of the line practitioner. The second partner, ‘‘Bottom Line Bob,’’ focused on calibrating the performance of each office member, including having partners records their activities by 15-min ‘‘chunks.’’ Bottom Line Bob then ‘‘audited’’ the performance metrics the partners recorded and discussed the reasons for unfavorable variances with each person. Though this review was performed at a distance (Hall, 1997) from the point of actual audit service delivery, as Bob typically stayed in his office and had partners report to him there, he also accentuated for his prote´ge´ the importance of orchestrating and displaying these performance metrics to gain promotion in the new social order of the entrepreneurial firm. When we asked the young partner which of these two mentoring styles he preferred, the, partner replied, ‘‘Bottom Line Bob – I felt comfortable with him in that I knew exactly where I stood with respect to his performance measures and less insecure about what it would take to make partner.’’ Thus, younger partners had come to accept, even demand, control practices as part of their everyday professional lives and not mere symbolic gestures to be gamed. Mentors considered power importance. Mentors who successfully sponsored prote´ge´s through the promotion process found themselves better connected with a new cadre of partners than nonmentors, which stabilized their own positions. Moreover, practice office managing partners who had served as mentors often proved disproportionately effective in gaining

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promotions for their office’s managers, so much so that they ‘‘exported’’ many new practice partners to other offices where they subsequently gained prominent leadership positions. The result appears to be more influence for the exporting office, for its managing partner, and for newly promoted and exported partners, who thus became better networked with other offices. Line partners reported on two managing partners, legendary for their success in exporting partners and gaining influence, who found this very success limiting their own exercise of formal authority, as signaled by their absence from such key committees as firm level policy boards and executive committees – absences the managing partners themselves reported during interviews to be major disappointments in their careers. They interpreted this failure as reflecting fear among national office administrators that if the partners acquired formal appointments where they would exercise a higher order of meta-power on top of their considerable mentoring-based power, their combined power would be overly formidable. Some prominent administrative partners recognized the central paradox of meta-power, with one firm deputy managing partner observing Many view ‘politics’ as being negative or a dirty word. [But] politics is very, very positive. Someone who is political has the ability to motivate and direct others and align them with their own thinking and behavior. This is what leadership and management is all about. Power, on the other hand, is interesting. In many instances, it is necessary to have the power to get things done. It is always best to have that power, but not be required to use it.

It appears that while the exercise of meta-power may be overt and observable, it may well be that the exercise of power is covert, that its force may escape observation though its effects are still felt (Wolfe, 2002). Administrative partners, of course, knew of the resistance to and gaming of the control practices they advanced, having themselves resisted them in their previous identities as line partners. According to a senior managing partner: The major aspect of a partnership that hinders management is the need to build a higher level of consensus than in other organizations, arising from the feeling on the part of the partners that they should be involved in managing all segments of the business. Progress and the accomplishment of what we are trying to accomplish has a price. The price is for existing partners to give up some of their control, power and freedom for the greater good. On balance they tend to resist doing this. The one area that constantly plagues me in my day-to-day management is the difficulty in managing a business composed of owners, professional prima donnas, if you like – where everything involves strong consensus building.

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However, processual orders are not constructed solely by face-to-face communications among human actors (Neitz, 2003, p. 8), but also by ‘‘transpersonal’’ interactions involving the arenas of social organization and policy, and politics and power (Cahill, 2003; Hall, 1997).

Moment II: The ‘Objectivation’ of an Entrepreneurial Profession The Construction of a New Form of Meta-Power Re-Defining the Issues within the Meso Domain (Hall, 1972; Strauss, 1993, p. 228). The decreasing profitability of auditing fueled attempts not only to reduce costs, as described in Moment I, but also to discover new sources of revenue in line with the demands of ‘‘global’’ clients (Wolfe, 2002). Faced with a myriad of forces sketched in Moment I, the profession sought to develop new forms of lucrative, nonaudit services (AICPA, 1999a; Elliott, 1999) to extend its jurisdiction. Traditionally, part of the Big 5/4 firms’ portfolio of services by which they extended their jurisdiction involved rendering consulting services (where they acted as advocates of their clients) to their auditing clients (where they were to be wholly independent of and impartial with respect to their clients). In 1998, for example, the Big 5 enjoyed $12 billion in consulting revenues and employed 62,000 consultants (McKenna, 2006). However, an often-expressed concern about consulting services was that it impaired independence: [C]ritics have pointed to conflicts of interest that exist when an accounting firms does lucrative consulting work for a client, making it less likely that the auditor will stand up to company management intent on stretching the boundaries of acceptable accounting. (WSJ, 2002b, p. C3)

In the Case of Enron, for example, audit fees amounted to $25 million per year, while consulting fees were $27 million for Arthur Andersen (WSJ, 2002b), with participants predicting combined fees of $100 million with 3 years. Consulting and other forms of service became so prominent that one regional managing partner asked during an interview, ‘‘How many international public accounting firms are there? Trick question. Answer: None. We are all now professional service firms!’’ (the phrase MDS – multidiscipline service firm – is increasingly applied across the Big 5/4 (Emerson, 1999; WSJ, 2002a, p. C3; PAR, 2000b). The contentiousness of consulting services appeared with increasing frequency in the popular press, with Wall Street Journal articles

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commenting that the expansion of consulting (collectively, the Big 5/4 performed 23% of such services for large companies worldwide at the time), represented ‘‘an outrageous conflict of interests’’ (WSJ, 1996a; Business Week, 1998; Mason, 2000; PAR, 1999a, 1999b), and a trend which ‘‘could add to the accounting profession’s credibility problems’’ (WSJ, 1996b, p. B8). The articles observed that the firms, worried about slowing revenues, had tripled the amount of ‘‘double duty work’’ they perform in the past five years (WSJ, 1996b, p. B1). The external financial audit (‘‘the plain vanilla audit’’) was characterized as having become ‘‘a stagnant commodity,’’ where clients resist fee increases because ‘‘they increasingly feel that traditional audits don’t help their business and that one is as good as another.’’ Such developments had not gone un-noticed by SEC, as voiced by SEC Commissioner Norman Johnson (1999; see also Levitt, 1996, 2000; PAR, 1999c, 1999d, 1999e): I fear that many of these independence problems are rooted in the dramatic organizational changes that have taken place in the accounting profession over the last several years. Accounting firms have found that the audit business that has been their bread and butter just does not allow for maximum business and financial growth. So accounting firms have looked for new sources of income and have ventured into services well beyond their traditional business, which may conflict with their established roles as auditors y You can expect, in turn, that the Commission will carefully scrutinize all its regulatory and enforcement alternatives in order to redress the problems posed by the lack of auditor independence.

Rules and Conventions (Hall, 1997, p. 409). Following a few widely reported violations of SEC and AICPA financial independence rules, SEC Chairman Levitt (2000; Business Week, 2000; PAR, 1999a, 1999b) lamented the ‘‘monetization’’ of the profession and how partners had become client ‘‘relationship managers’’ protecting their ‘‘reputational capital,’’ and how ‘‘too many auditors are being judged not just by how well they manage the audit, but by how well they cross-market their firm’s nonaudit services.’’ He concluded that ‘‘it’s no wonder that the Big 5/4 now position themselves globally as multidisciplinary professional service organizations rather than as accounting firms’’ (pp. 2–3). Anticipating regulation (MSNBC, 1999, p. 5), all but one of the Big 5/4 began divesting themselves of consulting (PAR, 2000c, 2000d). Despite this divestiture, on June 27, 2000, the SEC proposed extensive new regulations (SEC, 2000a, 2000b) that would ‘‘force a restructuring of the accounting profession and radically alter independence requirements for accounting firms that audit SEC registrants’’ (AICPA, 2002a; Telberg, 2000a).

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Strategic Agency (Hall, 1997, p. 409). The profession’s response was swift, with the AICPA (2000a) concluding the ‘‘new rule would cripple the ability of the accounting firms to operate in the new economy.’’ It encouraged its 330,000 members to write Congress strongly opposing the proposed regulation, and offered guidance on the content of letters (AICPA, 2000b). In concert with the AICPA’s actions, two letters signed by seven members of Congress, and from the U.S. House Banking and Financial Services Committee that oversees the SEC – all recipients of substantial campaign contributions from the Big 5/4, estimated at $24 million (Center for Responsive Politics, hereafter CRP, 2007e; WSJ, 2002c, p. C3) – demanded that ‘‘SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt defend his aggressive stance on auditor independence’’ and to ‘‘provide Congress with empirical evidence that would prove accounting firms having consulting relationships with audit clients are less independent than those firms that do not have such relationships’’ (PAR, 2000j, p. 4, 2000b; Telberg, 2000b). Thus, it was not just symbolic manipulation at play, but also large sums of money (Altheide, 2003, p. 52; Milyo, Primo, & Groseclose, 2000). The SEC subsequently held four days of public hearings on the proposed set of independence standards in September, 2000, and heard testimony from almost 100 witnesses (SEC, 2000a, p. 4). Predictably, the testimony of those representing the accounting profession, such AICPA President Barry Melancon (SEC, 2000a:/testimony/melanc/.htm) and Chairman Bob Elliott (SEC, 2000a:/testimony/Elliott/.htm) praised the SEC for initiatives to enhance the reputation of the profession while chastising it for undermining ‘‘market forces’’ and limiting the ability of the profession to become ‘‘knowledge experts’’ in the ‘‘information age.’’ They argued that perfect independence is not the ‘‘Holy Grail,’’ and that ‘‘governmental [meta] power’’ threatened to transform ‘‘aspirational goals’’ into ‘‘coercive rules.’’ The risk of approving the proposed rules would be to ‘‘ruin a crown jewel of the American Economy – its public accounting profession.’’ Following the hearings and Congressional pressure, SEC Chairman Levitt (2000) adopted a more conciliatory tone: As one of the profession’s greatest admirers, I’m here to celebrate the importance of a profession that has grown in stature along side the great American economy y The auditing profession is in my mind, one of the most noble in our marketplace. At the very core of the auditors’ mandate is preserving the sanctity and purity of the numbers y It is a heavy burden and an awesome privilege. Lift the light far and wide for the next generation of accountants to see. Lift the light far and wide for America’s investors to see.

The SEC (2000b; PAR, 2000f, 2000i) unanimously passed a substantially weakened set of rules that did not prohibit consulting services.

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The business press (PAR, 2000h, p. 1) interpreted the new rules as a signal that the Big 5/4 had won the ‘‘independence war’’: ‘‘In a startling victory for the profession, the SEC’s independence rule does almost nothing to stop the increasing flow of consulting work from CPA firms to their audit clients.’’ The business press also predicted that the $8.2 million of campaign contributions from the AICPA and the Big 5/4 to key, predominantly Republican politicians (CRP, 2007a; see also Brint, 1994, p. 207), which reached an all-time spike in the 2000 election cycle (CRP, 2007b, 2007c), would give rise a turnover of key SEC personnel. More specifically, data for the period show that the AICPA and Big 5 were among the twenty largest contributors to the Bush campaign (CRP, 2007a; PAR, 2001), and that the accounting profession had made significant campaign contributions to members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee (CRP, 2007d) and House Banking and Financial Services Committee (CRP, 2007e), which oversee the SEC, with Senate members Dodd (D-CN), Committee Chair Gramm (R-TX) and Schumer (D-NY), and House member Lazio (R-NY) receiving the largest contributions of committee members (in fact, only two U.S. Presidential aspirants, Bush and Bradley, exceeded Lazio’s contributions; Milyo et al., 2000). Following Bush’s victory, Levitt did indeed announce his resignation (WSJ, 2000f) and subsequently reported that Congressional threats to cut the SEC budget influenced the SEC’s decision to reduce the vigor with which it pursued enhanced regulations (WSJ, 2002b). Matching of Social Worlds with the Issues: Intentions, Language and the Vocabulary of Motives (Hall, 1997, p. 411). Following its political victory, the profession sought with renewed vigor to regenerate its abstract system of knowledge by broadening it to include added assurance services (AICPA, 2000d, 2000e; PAR, 2000l). Recipient of the Gold Quill Award from the International Association of Business Communicators, the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Organizational/Corporate Image Category of the Communicator Awards, and Communication Award of Distinction of Excellence in Writing, the AICPA’s ‘‘Vision Project’’ for the third millennium was launched in the Fall of 1999 with the proclamation that: The increasing complexities of the global environment and the commodity characteristics of traditional [audit] services mandate that the profession migrate up the economic value chain. Commodification and technology are challenging the economic viability of the profession. Information-based products and services are losing value in the marketplace and are rapidly being replaced with knowledge-based products and services that command higher fees. (AICPA, 1999a, p. 4; 1999b, p. 6; 1999c, p. G1)

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These ‘‘knowledge-based products’’ would be wielded by a newly credentialed, ‘‘globalized, expanded person’’ (Meyer, 2002; Davis & Zald, 2005) which would culminate in rendering more knowledge-based services: The Economic Platforms model describes the distribution of knowledge and effort along the economic value chain. The most successful future for the profession lies in moving from information services on Platform 1–2 [audit of financial statements] to services in the emerging knowledge industry on Platforms 3–6 [implement and manage control systems] and beyond [to global services on Platform 7]. The more a product or service is refined and defined, the less market value it will have. High Platform services are, and will increasingly be, the most valued services and functions, and therefore will command higher fees and salaries y The higher your work in on the economic value chain, the higher the revenue. This is the imperative for the profession to thrive in the knowledgebased, global economy. (AICPA 1999a)

Strategic Agency: The AICPA Places Itself in the Vector of Social Relations as a Necessary Relay (Hall, 1997, p. 409). In his opening speech as incoming AICPA Chair, Bob Elliott (1999), both supported the ‘‘Vision Project’’ and introduced the ‘‘XYZ credential,’’ a placeholder name until a new certification title could be invented to represent this ever-expanding ‘‘client need’’ and ‘‘market niche,’’ He defined the XYZ as a professional credential of ‘‘one who helps people or organizations achieve their objectives through the strategic use of information and creation of new knowledge’’ (Elliott, 1999). Elliott argued that the CPA credential ‘‘doesn’t cover the work we do’’ and suffers the intrusive regulations of state level licensing boards rather than being global in nature and directly controlled by the profession – thereby suggesting the replacement of one form of meta-power with another form. Thus, the XYZ ‘‘should be rooted in intellectual property rights, not government, so that it can be changed nimbly.’’ For Elliott, because the ‘‘technology threat [was] chewing up lower level value chain links,’’ CPAs had to become knowledge workers (Reed, 1996) who both used and created knowledge to serve clients. Stating that the ‘‘CPA is not just a license’’ but also a ‘‘brand,’’ Elliott justified the search for a new name on the advice of a brand consultant who advised that the CPA brand could not be ‘‘stretched’’ far enough to incorporate the global knowledge. Accordingly, the profession embarked on the development of a new credential, whose name had to be market-tested across the professional associations of five countries initially expressing an interest in it.

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Self-Regulation and the Paradox of Delegation (Hall, 1997, p. 407). The AICPA estimated that it would take $347 million to bring the new credential, eventually titled the Interdisciplinary Global Credential (IGC), to market (AICPA, 2000c). Perhaps the most significant impetus for the new credential was to escape the licensing restrictions imposed by governments, and rise above the rule of law by being controlled by a multinational professional association entitled the International Institute of Strategic Business Professionals (IISBP; AICPA, 2001a). Answering his own question of ‘‘why now’’ Elliott (1999) stated that: (1) the knowledge economy demands a knowledge leveraging credential; (2) the emergence of a global economy demands a global credential; and (3) the internet provides the platform for a global credential. Countering critics holding that ‘‘professionalism must be protected against crass commercialism,’’ Elliott (1999) concluded that: Our ethical rules, are not ends, they are means. The end we seek as a profession is to equip decision makers with high quality information y We must do nothing that obstruct us from our obligation to provide high quality information, that is information that is relevant, reliable, and timely. To repeat, our ethical rules are only means to achieve that end and are not sacrosanct on their own account y For our profession to realize the great opportunities within its reach, we must have a clear goal, sufficient resources, and effective leadership. Let me restate that more precisely: we need the vision, the power, and the courage. We certainly have the vision: our members have provided a powerful, forward-looking vision. And, as a profession, we have the power, because the half million CPAs in America produce nearly one percent of total value added in our economy. (p. 6)

Intentions and Language (Hall, 1997, p. 411). The Big 5/4 took immediate action to generate, anticipate and respond to the AICPA’s Vision. Accompanied by image campaigns directed at brand management that increased from $30 million to $100 million in 1 year (Emerson, 1999, p. 6), the firms deleted such titles as ‘‘Audit Division’’ in favor of such titles as ‘‘Assurance and Advising Services’’ to signal a broader array of services offered, with nontraditional assurance service revenues growing by double digits annually since 1998 (PAR, 2000m, 2002a). Moreover, each firm’s web home page provided a description of the ‘‘global,’’ ‘‘technology-based’’ services offered for the ‘‘new economy’’ in the ‘‘information age.’’ Indeed, the Big 5/4 asserted before the Independence Standards Board (2001) hearings that assurance services offer a 5% greater profit margin than consulting over the long term (PAR, 2000c, 2000n, 2002a; Emerson, 2000).

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A Rats’ Nest of Meta-Power/Power Despite the AICPA’s spending $5 million to educate its members on the benefits of the proposed ‘‘knowledge expert’’ credential, the AICPA’s lay membership voted it down by a majority of 62.7% on the belief that it would ‘‘water down’’ the traditional CPA credential and jurisdiction (AICPA, 2002b, 2002c). Meanwhile, following Levitt’s resignation, Washington lawyer Harvey Pitt was appointed by President Bush as SEC Chair (Industrial Standard, 2001; PAR, 2000e, 2000g, 2000j, 2000k). Pitt’s appointment was praised by AICPA president Melancon as presenting an opportunity for the profession to create an ‘‘yopen and progressive dialogue with the Commission’’ (Klein, 2002a, p. 1), and by the SEC a ‘‘kinder, gentler’’ enforcement stance with the Big 5/4 (Klein, 2002a). Pitt had previously served as the lawyer for most of the Big 5/4 concerning the regulation of their scope of services and firm structures, as well as the AICPA in establishing the self-regulatory Independence Standards Board (Klein, 2002a, p. 37). The SEC staff subsequently halted work on a report commissioned by Levitt that was severely critical of the profession’s selfregulatory efforts (WSJ, 2002e). Despite the apparent victory by the Big 5/4 in preserving their ability to perform multiple services for their clients, in the late Summer of 2001, things quickly unraveled with the collapse of Enron involving an estimated $75 billion loss in market value due in part to a $3.8 billion in financial misstatements (Weiss, 2002), and questions as to the efficacy of its audit and eventual demise of its external auditors – Arthur Andersen (WSJ, 2002n). The Enron debacle was quickly followed by such celebrated failures as Andersen’s client WorldCom, (WSJ, 2002b, 2002c, 2002f, 2002g; Klein, 2002b; PAR, 2002b), with more major corporations restating financial statements than ever before, and 18 of the top 20 litigation settlements in 2001 entailing accounting misstatements (WSJ, 2002c, 2002e). Such systemic problems created an ‘‘accounting crisis’’ associated with trillions of dollars of stock market decline that has been described as the largest drop since the 1929 crash (AICPA, 2002d; Fortune, 2001; Forbes, 2002a, 2002b; Mason, 2002; WSJ, 2002d, 2002p) and necessitated Congressional action to restore order and public confidence (Altheide, 2003, p. 17). Rules and Conventions (Hall, 1997, p. 409). In the months following the Enron/Andersen debacle, the SEC and Chairman Pitt abandoned the ‘‘kinder, gentler’’ enforcement stance (Klein, 2002a) and sought to establish new forms of meta-power by developing new proposals for regulating

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the profession at a distance (WSJ, 2002d, 2002h, 2002i; PAR, 2002c). However, the SEC proposals were quickly criticized, with, for example, Senate Majority Leader Tom Dascle (D-South Dakota) observing ‘‘I hope that [SEC Chair Harvey] Pitt and others who are advocating something as innocuous as [the SEC proposals] will have second thoughts and will reconsider’’ (WSJ, 2002j, p. A2). Pitt was criticized for a lack of taking sufficiently aggressive actions to regulate the profession (WSJ, 2002k, 2002l, 2002m), and, while serving as an AICPA lawyer in 1997, drafting a white paper submitted to the SEC ‘‘arguing against any move by the SEC to crack down on potential conflicts of interest by auditors by limiting the nonaudit work they could perform for the firms they audit’’ (WSJ, 2002k, p. C20). However, with President George Bush’s support, Pitt remained as SEC Chair despite continuing calls for his resignation (WSJ, 2002q, 2002r). U.S. Congress, meanwhile, proceeded with legislation designed to directly regulate the accounting profession at a distance (Hall, 1997). Among the various proposals put fourth was Paul Sarbanes’ (D. Maryland), Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, bill that was considered one of the most rigorous. Resigned Levitt predicted that Sarbanes’ legislation faced formidable odds of becoming law because accountants ‘‘will do everything possible to protect their franchise, and will do so with little regard to the public interest’’ (WSJ, 2002o, 2002t, p. C7). Not surprisingly, the visibility of WorldCom’s subsequent failure breathed new life into Sarbanes’ initiative. Sarbanes’ proposal was quickly passed by a ‘‘landslide vote in both houses’’ (PAR, 2002d, p. 4), and was promptly and enthusiastically signed into law by President Bush, who proclaimed ‘‘We will not allow fraud to undermine our economy,’’ and praised the legislation as the ‘‘most farreaching reform of American business [and form of meta-power by exercising control at a distance] since the Great Depression’’ (WSJ, 2002p, p. A4). Key provisions of the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Act of 2002 (http://openlibrary.org/b/OL22441273M/ Act-to-Protect-Investors-by-Improving-the-Accuracy-and-Reliability-ofCorporate-Disclosures-Made-Pursuant-to-the-Securities-Laws%2C-andfor-Other-Purposes), known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or more colloquially as ‘‘SOX,’’ include: (1) prohibition of 14 specific nonaudit services including financial information systems design and implementation, expert services unrelated to the audit and legal services and (2) the establishment of a 5 member Public Company Oversight Board (PCAOB) to be appointed by the SEC (PAR, 2002d), effectively ending the profession’s self-regulation. With SEC Chair Pitt’s nomination to this board of an individual who had served

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on a board of directors for a company suffering from financial statement fraud, Bush’s support for Pitt was withdrawn ending in Pitt’s resignation (WSJ, 2002s, 2002u).

Moment III: The ‘Internalization’ of the Post-SOX, Global Knowledge Expert Internalization within the Individual Symbolic Mobilization of Support for a Course of Action (Hall, 1972). Dramatically impacted, though undeterred, by the press of events within the meso-domain sketched in Moment II, the social constitution of the entrepreneurial professional proceeded within the firms. At the level of the individual, a whole new, unanticipated ‘‘superstructure’’ (or form of meta-power) of the firms was reported by rookie partners – that after promotion to what they thought was the ‘‘final plateau,’’ they realized that ‘‘there were partners and then there were partners.’’ These latter partners described an inner circle – a cadre of partners who were ‘‘on the bus’’ and shared a common vision of transitioning into an entrepreneurial professional services firm by: setting the strategic, largely financial direction of the firm as a profit-making enterprise on a centralized basis in the national or even international office; establishing centralized control to facilitate moving in this direction; and committing themselves to the exercise of centralized control as being more than just a symbolic gesture to be gamed. External control, exercised at a distance, had become internalized within this cadre. On this level, a form of transformed mentoring emphasized a commitment to this new strategic direction in both fact and appearance. Mentors, in turn, actively promoted, even ‘‘paid the fare,’’ for prote´ge´s who appeared committed to this new strategic direction of the firm. Mentoring instilled an ability to exert self-control within these prote´ge´s, wherein meta-power became encoded within the individual rather than needing control at a distance. A regional managing partner indicated that partners in his firm ‘‘pined for the good old days of a culture of partnership,’’ but cautioned that what they longed for never really existed. He indicated, though, that he was engaged in trying to improve what he called a ‘‘horizontal sense of partnership,’’ or ‘‘concentric circles of partnership’’ by trying to tighten the social bonds and reduce the diameter of the ‘‘circles’’ among partners, in part by bolstering ‘‘shared values’’ that he believed had eroded as a consequence of the prior commercialization of practice and the firm debacles. He reported also being

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engaged in developing a ‘‘vertical sense of partnership’’ by shortening the distance between practice partners and the ‘‘guys at the top.’’ Moreover, he expressed the ardent hope that establishing such a ‘‘culture of partnership’’ would offer the promise of providing a ‘‘leverage point to deal with ‘Gen Y’ recruits who do not possess the work ethic or values necessary to help the firm survive.’’ A senior managing partner added that this leverage could be applied because ‘‘culture was like a river’’ – a flow that could change with the times, with the people caught within its current. Another regional managing partner indicated that she, too, was trying to ‘‘reinvigorate a culture of partnership.’’ She reported that when she surveyed the partners in her region on the questions ‘‘What is the key to overcoming our region’s/ firm’s problems and moving forward? and What is the one thing you would like to accomplish?’’ the overwhelming, unprompted response was ‘‘I would like to reconnect with my fellow partners.’’ Their answer suggests that, just as the hierarchical (i.e., higher ranks coaching lower ranks) mentoring relationships stressed the social dynamics of ‘‘being professional,’’ these partners expressed a continuing need to connect socially with members of the firm, but perhaps in a less hierarchical manner within relationships that were more collegial in nature. The first regional managing partner reported, however, that establishing this culture was very hard work, but that the ‘‘mere act of talking about the issues tended to improve the sense of partnership.’’ This latter point is important: establishing a ‘‘culture of partnership’’ was an item on the agenda of administrative partners who, in trying to centrally orchestrate it, were trying to capture something that had proceeded through the play of power in mentor relationships, into a transformed meta-power that the firms could encode and act on to have partners then internalize it. Internalization within the Firms Structuring Situations, Relationships, and Activities through Strategic Action (Hall, 1997, pp. 409, 413). As noted in Moment II, while the creation of a new global knowledge expert credential had been denied by the members of the AICPA, the need for and development of such expertise still proceeded. For example, IGC advocate and AICPA Chairman Robert Elliott re-affirmed his support for the substance of the global knowledge expert, if not its form, in 2002, indicating that the profession was in a unique position to render such technology-driven services and thereby create wealth for CPA’s and their clients (Elliott, 2002). Indeed, a Spring, 2002 Wall Street Journal study of companies comprising the Dow showed that 73% of the $726 million fees paid to the Big 5/4 were for nonfinancial statement

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assurance services. Similarly, the profession is working with, and by the Big 4 forming a Global Steering Committee, strengthening the newly created, nongovernmental International Federation of Accountants (IFAC, http:// www.ifac.org; see Humphrey & Loft, forthcoming, for detailed discussion of organizations implicated in governing audits globally) to develop and harmonize accounting and auditing standards worldwide. This effort has gained the support of such international institutions as the G7, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and International Organization of Securities Commissions (Global Public Policy Symposium, 2006, p. 3), thus suggesting the need for a global knowledge expert to apply such standards. Consistent with this position, AICPA Chair James Castellano and President Barry Melancon proclaimed ‘‘We have already begun to focus on other benefits that will accrue from a [new] reporting model that is suitable for Information Age companies, whose earning assets are often not accurately valued by traditional, manufacturing-based [accounting] measures’’ (AICPA, 2002a) – increasingly referred to as NIFA: New International Financial Architecture (Humphrey & Loft, forthcoming). As noted in Moment II, the SOX placed prohibitions on what other services, such as consulting, can be offered by a public corporation’s auditors. As a result, the remaining audit firms had to re-design their business models to remain viable in the new environment, for example, by developing nonprohibited, and even complementary services such as ‘‘forensic auditing,’’ one primary purpose of which is to detect fraud. On this point, an administrative partner reported that forensic auditing was experiencing double-digit growth annually at her firm. A national senior managing partner reported that part of the attraction of such services was that they were relatively unregulated. Moreover, at a 2006 international conference in Paris (Global Public Policy Symposium, 2006, cover page), the large audit entities redefined themselves not as firms, but as ‘‘international audit networks,’’ to serve clients that a senior managing partner described as needing a ‘‘globally networked firm.’’ A practice partner added that such entities would ‘‘create a knowledge network to create value for clients.’’ This consortium of firms proposed that public clients should routinely subject themselves to ‘‘forensic audits’’ to prevent and detect fraud that may escape isolation during traditional financial statement audits (WSJ, 2006a, 2006b). Tellingly, the consortium’s white paper was entitled ‘‘Global Capital Markets and the Global Economy: A Vision from the CEO’s of the International Audit

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Networks,’’ signaled that the profession did indeed still possess a ‘‘vision’’ of serving the global business community with a cadre of specialized knowledge workers. Moreover, a senior managing partner stated that while his firm still adhered to the strategy of performing traditional audits, ‘‘all auditors should also develop and apply forensic skills across all forms of engagements.’’ One firm senior managing partner observed that what is currently driving his firm’s transformation ‘‘y is not regulation, nor the mounting technical needs of our clients, but the globalization of our clients and their inherent shortfalls in addressing the problems of this globalization, moving across regulatory and cultural regimes. Clients don’t have the depth and breadth of expertise to deal with this process. We do, or will’’ (emphasis his). In turn, another national senior managing partner reported that all four firms were developing new business models and strategies that would better integrate the firms on a global level, in his firm’s case, across the 144 countries of his practice. Two administrative partners, as well as a senior manager observed that there is a growing need for auditors to become ‘‘proactive’’ and ‘‘preemptive’’ in their audit approach, in essence, to function as knowledge workers in the information age. Echoing the line of reasoning advanced by the ‘‘international audit networks’’ of firm CEO’s at the Global Public Policy Symposium in Paris (2006, p. 2), they observed that such ‘‘hard assets’’ as buildings and equipment were becoming increasingly immaterial relative to such ‘‘intangibles’’ as patents and copyrights that figured more prominently in being ‘‘value-drivers’’ for clients. They reported that if you ‘‘waited for the outputs of decisions’’ – the transactions and their documentation – ‘‘it would be too late,’’ that ‘‘last year’s working papers are a poor indication of what should be done this year.’’ Instead, they reported that auditors had to focus on providing ‘‘inputs’’ to transactions by having ‘‘a seat at the table for every piece of the deal’’ before the transaction was entered into, where the auditor would ask ‘‘What’s your strategic objective and how do you plan to achieve it?’’ Testing had to progress, they asserted from ‘‘retrospective to real-time auditing,’’ possibly yielding less documentation (see, the newly created PCAOB’s, 2007, review of one Big 4 firm pertaining to its documentation shortfalls). To support such ‘‘real time audits,’’ one senior managing partner indicated that formal partner evaluations [at a distance] had to be reengineered into ‘‘in-flight assessments’’ (apparently the ‘‘buses’’ had sprouted wings), much as mentoring had given continuous feedback rather than at the end of audits to engender rapid adaptation and adjustment. As reported by firm members,

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such real-time audits had already been implemented as part of the ongoing reorientation of audits in such technology-rich environments as internet banks that have no ‘‘bricks and mortar’’ (i.e., hard assets such as buildings), or even hard cash (i.e., since it exists in electronic form). One problem identified by a regional managing partner, and also by the senior practice partner charged by his firm with monitoring legislation, was that the pre-emptive ‘‘technology behind the technology’’ audits required the exercise of highly seasoned judgment, not the performance of tests by rote. They worried about the five year partner rotation provision of SOX in that the application of experience-driven judgment would become more difficult, particularly for multinational clients with extremely complex operations. One regional managing partner speculated that the performance of such pre-emptive audits, etc., combined with socio-legal forces, is purportedly reversing prior trends and rendering the contemporary audit a ‘‘noncommodity,’’ though she stopped short of stating that it was no longer commercialized. The second force she described as an ‘‘audit risk’’ – not of the auditor, but that of the client who could ill-afford a defective audit and a threat to the credibility of its financial statements that this would occasion. She asserted that clients cannot afford to have commodity-like audits performed. It was not just that the values of the entrepreneurial profession were being encoded within prote´ge´s’ via mentoring vis-a`-vis the inter-play of power and meta-power, but also the firms themselves were being transformed. One regional managing partner described how his mentor had placed him on not just a generic bus, but on a ‘‘Mercedes bus’’ by appointing him to the ‘‘Change Management Task Force,’’ whose mission was to dramatically restructure the entire firm by developing new structures for expressing meta-power to better serve the needs of a global business clientele. Based on the mentor’s observation of the prote´ge´’s favorable impact on the task force, the prote´ge´ was also named to the firm’s omnipotent policy board. Then, when a new U.S. Management Committee was being formed to manage this new structure of meta-power, the mentor wanted this prote´ge´ to be on the committee. Given that only one member could represent the Northeast region, and that representative must politically come from its New York office, the mentor’s solution was to redefine the prote´ge´’s home office, Philadelphia, as the Southeastern region head office, which was to be directed by the prote´ge´. The result was the complicity of mentoring, and the exercise of power so derived, in

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dramatically re-engineerng the firm’s infrastructure of meta-power, the continuing monitoring and refinement of the firm, and also a redrawing of the Mason-Dixon line. It consequently appears that in at least some instances, then, that power and meta-power had conjoined at the highest management cadre level. But whereas the original, line-partner–mentor relationships were aimed at helping the individual negotiate the demands of and game the centralized control system, elite partner, Mercedes bus–mentor relationships focused on furthering the firm’s interest in creating, implementing, and exercising new forms of meta-power. One regional managing partner cautioned, though, that while her firm sought to be ‘‘entrepreneurial in how it served its clients, it was not entrepreneurial in how it approached standards of professional conduct,’’ signaling a continuing distinction between the business and the profession of auditing. This exercise of centralized power, however, proved to be problematic, as those ‘‘on the bus’’ were not able to unilaterally to determine the ‘‘destination’’ sought by the firm – they needed the cooperation of the unwashed masses not on the bus, but who nevertheless generated the revenue to finance the trip. As suggested by one firm’s senior managing partner, practice partners tended effectively to ‘‘resist relinquishing control, power and freedom for the greater good of the firm.’’

IMPRESSIONS: STRUCTURAL ARRANGEMENTS EXIST IN AND THROUGH THE SOCIAL PROCESSES THAT RENDER THOSE STRUCTURES OPERATIVE (MAINES, 1982, 2003) Consistent with the processual ordering perspective, (Hall, 1997, 2003; Strauss, 1993; Ulmer, 1997, 2005), our field observations suggest that the transformation of public accounting, and especially the Big 4, from a traditional to an entrepreneurial profession (Reed, 1996) is very much characterized by negotiation, conflict, manipulation, coercion, bargaining, collusion, power brokering and strategic use of an evolving rhetoric. Moreover, our observations suggest that this transformation is interpenetrated with existing and emerging rule systems, norms, laws and societal expectations of professional endeavor.

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More specifically as it concerns our central research question, our field observations suggest that power and meta-power were both complicit in impacting the structural arrangements being implemented and transformed by the social processes that was mentoring within the firms as they sought to become an entrepreneurial profession serving the global business community. Within Moment I, we observed that ‘‘changes in broader structural and organizational conditions’’ (Strauss, 1993, p. 88) in the form of an increasingly litigious environment and government regulation resulted in heightened competition and commodification of the audit craft. This shift would in turn ‘‘inevitably bring about the reworking of arrangements’’ (p. 88) in the form of administrative partners within the firms developing new forms of meta-power to centrally control the actions of practitioners. Administrators effectively defined (Strauss, 1993, p. 228) the altered conditions in economic terms, and sought to modify the social world (p. 229) of the firm by redefining the rules of the game, and then delegated application of these new rules to practice partners to ‘‘produce cooperative and compliant behavior by getting others to embrace the intentions of their superiors’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 413; Altheide, 2003; Cahill, 2003). Administrators hoped to encourage practice partners see the audit and their subordinates in economic terms expressed in quasi contracts, or ‘‘charters’’ which provided a ‘‘vocabulary of motives’’ (p. 411), so that the firm would better match external conditions. However, meta-power is ‘‘both extended and threatened by delegation’’ (p. 407) in that there exist multiple viewpoints and multifaceted notions of reality. Here, practice partners saw centralized control as threatening their professional identity, and, in part, addressed this altered landscape in their mentoring relationships. Essentially, our field observations suggest mentoring is very much a power relationship that has the potential for altering meta-power. Thus, not only was ‘‘power manifest through the intended creation by some actors [administrative partners] of the conditions and contexts in which other actors [practice partners] find themselves’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 403; Neitz, 2003), but also in the resistance and transformation of these very conditions by these other actors. Ironically, though, through the act of mentoring and attending to the rhetoric of the economics of auditing, meta-power exercised its grip not only on the prote´ge´, who had to talk about, think about and act on the new rules of the game, but also the mentor, who also had to examine and interpret his or her social milieu in economic terms, thereby de facto becoming ‘‘homo economicus.’’ But ironically also, in resisting, deflecting and interpreting the new rules of the game, these rules became socially

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transformed so that they were no longer wholly controlled by administrative partners, for there arose a strategic control of information in both directions between the administrative and practice partners of the firms (Freidson, 1986) as meta-power became extended and threatened through its requisite delegation (Hall, 1997, p. 407; Neitz, 2003, p. 9). Thus, the inter-play of power and meta-power not only shaped social structures and processes, but also the very identities of the implicated social actors, who in turn shaped the inter-play itself (Maines, 2003, p. 25; Altheide, 2003, p. 55). By fundamentally shaping identity, the inter-play of power and meta-power also simultaneously limited and released human potential (Maines, 2003, p. 24). Within Moment II of our fieldwork, multiple waves of meta-power and power were evident as they became applied in a recursive, iterative fashion. Because of an observed conflict of interest as the Big 5/4 performed auditing and consulting services, the SEC sought to apply a new regime of metapower in the form of more restrictive ‘‘rules and conventions y to fix the terrain of everyday behavior’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 409; March & Olson, 1983, p. 284). However, fortified with campaign contributions strategically placed with members of key Congressional committees overseeing the SEC, as well as a pro-business Presidential candidate (Cahill, 2003), the Big 5/4 and profession exercised their power to ‘‘manipulate, use to their advantage, avoid, or in other ways manage material conditions’’ (Strauss, 1993, p. 88; Hall, 1972) until the SEC capitulated and implemented a substantially weakened form of regulation, and, following the 2000 election of Bush, the installation of a new SEC Chair who was much more favorable to the profession. Thus, once more, the application of power impacted metapower. But then, following the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen with the attendant press coverage, Congress felt the latent power of the public and the press, and took action by passing the SOX, introducing a form of meta-power that was seen as altering the ‘‘rules of the game,’’ according to President Bush, as substantially as the 1933 and 1934 Securities Exchange Acts (WSJ, 2002p; Altheide, 1996, 2003). Thus, SOX came to be ‘‘reflexive of communication, meso-structure and meta-power’’ (Altheide, 2003, p. 21). But the inter-play of power and meta-power continued within Moment II. After having at least partially commodified its traditional services through application of technology, the accounting profession saw a need to regenerate its overall abstract system of knowledge to support new forms of marketable services which promised more firm profits – it sought to transform public accounting into a globalized entrepreneurial profession

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(Reed, 1996). Consequently, the AICPA proposed that since audit practices mirrored the now commodified audit product, the system of auditing and accounting knowledge, and most importantly its image (Klapp, 1964), were in dire need of regeneration. The goal was to enhance the profession’s metapower by making itself essential to a globalized clientele and acted with ‘‘strategic agency’’ to place itself ‘‘within the vector of social interactions [between this clientele and the information age] as a necessary relay’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 409; 2003, p. 63). The AICPA prophesized in its ‘‘Vision’’ statement a technological solution to the problem of regenerating its knowledge system (AICPA, 1999a): Practitioners were to ascend a ‘‘value chain’’ whose higher rungs were progressively more lucrative since they involved rendering ‘‘higher platforms of service’’ to clients trying to survive the ‘‘information challenges’’ of a ‘‘global economy’’ (Davis & Zald, 2005; Meyer, 2002). The AICPA envisioned the profession as not merely providing data or information services as under the old ‘‘CPA brand,’’ but as comprised of ‘‘knowledge experts’’ (Reed, 1996) sporting a new credential – the IGC. Essentially, this ‘‘charter’’ would provide a new ‘‘vocabulary of motives’’ to ‘‘motivate and mobilize collective endeavor’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 411) on the part of its membership. At a price tag of millions of dollars, the AICPA not only sought to socially constitute a new image, but also to market test and globalize it to a target audience comprised of the voting members of the profession, multinational clients, regulators and the investing public. That the ‘‘intentions and language’’(p. 411) surrounding ‘‘Vision’’ and the IGC used such techno-jargon as ‘‘knowledge expert,’’ ‘‘information technology,’’ ‘‘relationship manager,’’ ‘‘higher-order platforms of service,’’ ‘‘globalization,’’ ‘‘world class,’’ ‘‘value chain,’’ and ‘‘market needs,’’ without directly addressing issues of instrumental substance, is not, however, to be considered a flaw. It was through ‘‘Vision’’ and the IGC that the profession described very general, universal forms of or yet-to-be-developed expertise that would enable multinational clients to adjust to dynamic, complex, even global forms of nagging uncertainty that they would surely face. In turn, the meta-power that was existing auditing standards, and even the ethical cornerstone of the profession – independence, were rendered malleable, rhetorically converted into ‘‘independence risk’’ and a ‘‘means to an end,’’ which could be managed, rather than being held sacrosanct (Elliott, 1999). It would also curtail the meta-power exercised by governmental jurisdictions worldwide in the form of rule systems (Hall, 1997, p. 209) because the new professional association, the

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IISBP, would directly certify and empower the new era professionals, not government. The SEC, meanwhile, challenged the profession that the ethos of entrepreneurialism imperiled not only the profession’s neutrality, but its ‘‘very soul’’ (Levitt, 1996) – a neutrality seen as essential in granting it the monopoly to attest the fairness of corporate financial statements (Johnson, 1999). However, since the transformation of professional practice is the product of fiercely contested interactions among a variety of social actors (Strauss, 1993), even the heavily paid and promoted rhetorical efforts of the profession to redefine a professional jurisdiction did not succeed with the AICPA membership’s exercise of power and refusal to entertain a new vision of a global knowledge expert possessing the IGC (Strauss, 1993, p. 88). Thus, the processual ordering perspective illuminates ‘‘how transpersonal processes of power, politics and social organization structure bring varied social situations together, while at the same time being animated by interpersonal processes within them’’ (Altheide, 2003, p. 54). Within Moment III, we found that the firms continued to exercise metapower and develop a range of services not specifically prohibited by the SOX legislation in the hope of furthering the quest to become an entrepreneurial profession serving a globalized clientele. In essence, in seeking to develop these services, imbuing practitioners with the skill set to perform them, and marketing them to clients, the Big 4 sought to codify new proprietary practices to provide a ‘‘cause and rationale for behavior’’ and thereby place themselves ‘‘within the vector of social interactions as a necessary relay’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 409). Meanwhile, mentoring relationships, normally revolving around the exercise of power, proceeded, but morphed into incorporating elements of meta-power. Within Moment III, a cadre of elite partners on the ‘‘Mercedes bus’’ had, through mentoring that had in turn shifted to using a ‘‘vocabulary of motives’’ to engender ‘‘committed selves’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 411), come to internalize the edicts of entrepreneurial professionalism, not only symbolically, but by instrumentally supporting the firms’ commercial direction and grooming knowledge workers. In essence, this internalization by a select few had overcome the ‘‘central paradox of meta-power that it is extended and threatened by delegation’’ (Hall, 1997, p. 407; Neitz, 2003, p. 9). We also found evidence that not only had these elite partners internalized structural elements of meta-power, but also that these partners, aided by the exercise of power by elite mentors who had

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paid their ‘‘bus fare,’’ would go on to serve on firm policy committees and set agendas for the development of new regimes of meta-power in the form of new rules and conventions for governing the firms in the entrepreneurial era. We conclude that the transformation of professional endeavor into an entrepreneurial profession is hardly an instrumental activity, but rather the product of community life, wherein the strategies proposed by the processual ordering branch of symbolic interaction of negotiation, conflict, manipulation, coercion, exchange, bargaining, collusion, power brokering, and rhetoric – interpenetrated with existing and emerging rule systems, norms, laws and societal expectations – are much in evidence (Hall, 1997, 2003; Strauss, 1993; Ulmer, 1997, 2005). Moreover, power and meta-power played inter-penetrated roles within the social construction process. Not only was their application found to be highly nuanced, recursive and iterative, but also highly inter-twined in the development of meaning in the public accounting profession. We urge future research probing their interdependencies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT We wish to thank the Smeal College of Business and the Deloitte & Touche Foundation for their generous support, and Norman Denzin, Anthony Hopwood, John Meyer, Mayer Zald, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions.

REFERENCES Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. AICPA. (1999a). Available at www.cpavision.org, or see also AICPA Vision CD. AICPA. (1999b). Assurance services are an integral part of the CPA vision. The CPA Letter, pp. 1–6. AICPA. (1999c). The electronic business strategic initiative. The CPA Letter, October, p. G1. AICPA. (2000a). Available at www.aicpa.org/belt/sec/summary.htm AICPA. (2000b). Available at www.AICPA.org/front/xyz.vote.htm. AICPA. (2000c). Available at www.aicpa.org/members/div/auditstd/horizons.htm. AICPA. (2000d). Internet portal, broad-based global credential discussed at region council meeting. The CPA Letter, May, pp. 1, 8. AICPA. (2000e). AICPA announces new information technology credential. The CPA Letter, May, p. 3.

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MYSTIFICATION OF ROCK Michael A. Katovich and Wesley Longhofer ABSTRACT This chapter compares and contrasts the British invasion and punk rock as mystified, post-performance products. Expanding on Goffman’s notion of mystification to discuss texts that emerged from performances and drawing on Mannheim’s distinction between ideological and utopian perspectives, we discuss the British invasion as bound to elite interpretations of mystified products and punk rock as bound to more provincial and anti-elitist interpretations. We note that despite differences, both genres involve, to varying degrees, mystifying differences, mystifying legendary status, and mystifying popularity itself. The discussion of both musical genres compliments and affirms previous analyses, especially the analysis of punk rock as a dramaturgical and utopian version of play.

In his biography of Bob Dylan’s legendary single, ‘‘Like a Rolling Stone,’’ Greil Marcus (2005, pp. 98–99) described a particular response in a Hawaiian restaurant amid the normal clatter of a lunch crowd. Marcus noted that ‘‘There was a radio playing tunes from a local FM station, but it was almost impossible to focus on what they were. Then ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ y interrupted what was going on y As if a note were being passed from one table to another, people raised their heads y conversations fell away y It was a stunning moment y When the song was over, it was like the air had gone out of the room.’’ In that crystallized moment of time,

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 33, 389–415 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033024

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Marcus observed a collective response to a particular song that seemed to not only transcend any other sound or sight in the room but also to create a space between the song and the people responding to it that would remain memorable in and of itself. Marcus (2005, p. 146) hailed ‘‘Like a Rolling Stone’’ as doing ‘‘what a work of art is supposed to do.’’ Specifically, it established itself as a unique creation that transcended nostalgia, pastiche, camp, and self-parody. It remains an undiminished product within, what Schutz and Luckmann (1973) termed, ‘‘restorable reach.’’ While ubiquitous and available, it manages to avoid cliche´, triviality, or coarse commonality. By way of an analogy, Goffman (1959, 1971) noted that particular performances, while grounded in an everyday interaction order, maintain a mystified status as enactments that manage to create specialized spaces between performers and their audience. The after dinner speaker, the much appreciated raconteur, and the charismatic actor provide stable and even predictable performances that nevertheless engender the same response that Marcus observed when diners took notice of a ‘‘remarkable oldie.’’ The possibility that an audience can treat a song with this sense of awe makes for an additional possibility – that genres as well as individuals can attain the statuses of mystification. In the following sections, we wish to extend Goffman’s concept of mystification into realms of post-performance (texts and objects that result from specific performances) and examine the genres of British pop and rock and American and British punk. We regard each as having produced sounds and appearances that have not only provided an artistic legacy but that also resonate to audiences in the aforementioned manner described by Marcus. As specific consequences (texts) of many dramaturgical performances, the mystification of rock and punk allows for practical ends (merchandising) while evoking awe among those (an audience) recalling the performance through radio, disc, album, tunes, and the like. The specific processes of post-performance mystification that we explore pertain to mystifying differences (in aesthetic taste, class consciousness, and presentation of selves), mystifying legendary status (associated with the past, particular places as Meccas, and information transmission), and mystifying popularity itself. Drawing on Durkheim’s (1965[1915], p. 47) distinction between sacred and profane, the mystification of pop/rock and punk music and musical performances involves explicit attention to and definition of everyday accomplishments as witnessed by audiences from specialized places that represent appropriate distance between the performance and its observance. As pop/rock music moved from a novelty on some AM radio stations to a staple on AM/FM stations, and then to nostalgia, it graduated from mere

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merchandise to an art form. The graduation invited musicians, fans, and critics to create art worlds that differentiated taste within aesthetic and ideological reference points (Becker, 1982). The obvious duality between commercialized entertainment and serious art reminds us of Mannheim’s (1936, pp. 39–42) distinction between ideology and utopia. Elites inhabiting privileged positions (bolstered by assigned definitions of ‘‘being knowledgeable’’ and assigned statuses of ‘‘being hip’’) and perpetuating allegiance to specific accomplishments of music provide ongoing definitions of sacred and profane objects that are based on ideological standpoints. Non-elites who subscribe to alternative versions of accomplishments, and view music as produced within utopian universes of discourse, appearance, and touch, also provide ongoing challenges to elite views. In this light, we see the mystification of British/American rock as having a different ‘‘moral career’’ than the mystification of punk (cf. Goffman, 1961, pp. 117–119). Our primary contention is that mystification of punk relies on a ‘‘success from scratch’’ ethos that can be compared to a utopian idealism associated with emotional standpoints of rage and metaphorical allusions to rebellion. In contrast, the mystification of British pop/rock is associated with a commercialized aesthetic that involves overt acceptance of expert ideologies and values, especially those pertaining to the values of competence and talent (mastery of instruments). Punk becomes mystified as music that can be created by anyone. Opportunities to create take on a sacred status. By contrast, British pop/rock (The Beatles and The Rolling Stones) becomes mystified as historically grounded music suitable for emerging elites with acquired tastes. The writers, producers, and performers of such music attain a specialized status that people in high cultures honor and validate. In the process, the music and its link to particular conceptions of the past become sacred.

MYSTIFICATION AND IDEALISTIC POTENTIAL Through post-performance mystification, popular music becomes revered and commercialized simultaneously, creating a commercialized aesthetic. While this aesthetic seems to contradict the more rigid distinction between the sacred and profane advanced by Durkheim, it implies complex boundaries that separate ‘‘success’’ from ‘‘success in the name of.’’ Critics and fans honor the commercialized aesthetic to make analytical distinctions between crass/vulgar capitalism and necessary pragmatism. The necessity of pragmatism honors artistic achievement and ‘‘being true’’ to ethereal motives and intentions as it accepts commercial marketing and packaging.

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While not always easily codified, the difference between a commercialized aesthetic and commercial ‘‘schlock’’ can have intersubjective validity. Although punk and British pop/rock are distinct musical and sociohistorical genres, each can be thought of as parts of a mystified and commercialized whole, often identified as ‘‘rock music.’’ The general application of rock to any genre emphasizes the prominence of electric guitars, drums, and lead singers whose voices contrasted sharply with earlyto mid-twentieth-century crooners. In this regard, punk and British pop/ rock shared a common purpose to produce rhythms, melodies, and beats that resonated with, and even incorporated, the sounds and techniques of earlier blues and (to some degree) jazz musicians. Scholars who have examined pop/rock have maintained that commercial success and elite acceptance does not necessarily undermine artistic idealism (Weinstein, 1999; Grossberg, 1992; Reynolds & Press, 1995). Some have also demonstrated how utopian themes such as artistic integrity, creative composition, emotional connections (between artists and audience), social criticism, sacredness of classics, and a revolutionary spirit stand in apparent contrast to a hegemonic and sometimes monolithic capitalistic ideological framework (Marcuse, 1964, p. 57). However, despite obvious attempts to commercialize utopian themes, musicians, fans, and critics can recreate artistic idealism and transmit it from one (playing, listening, and appreciating) generation to the next. The utopian vision of fans, musicians, and critics in regard to an aesthetic for punk and British pop/rock maintained that these genres would ‘‘correct’’ popular music ‘‘gone bad.’’ Each of the genres emphasized a ‘‘back-tobasics’’ approach – in regard to American blues and post–World War II rock for the British and in regard to the ‘‘garage band’’ styles that emerged in the wake of the British invasion for punk (Eriksen, 1980). Each genre would restore the sounds, appearances, and commitment to idealism that characterized a promise of music associated with varieties of ‘‘fringe’’ cultures, including jazz, blues, soul, and rock music. Scholars adhering to a modernist view challenged such idealism as naı¨ ve. Most notably, the modernist view established by Marx and elaborated by Weber held that all utopian and essentially non-materialistic objectives eventually become meaningless in the context of capitalistic production and rendered either as irrelevant or absurd (Goodwin, 1971). As popular and artistic correctives, British pop and punk rock stood for utopian expression but became absorbed into an ideological system as commercialized products. For instance, punk fans of the Ramones deplored how a song such as ‘‘Blitzkrieg Bop’’ became used in a commercial for a cell wireless phone

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company. Through commercialization, the song becomes ‘‘just another’’ stream of noise on the television (Stivers, 1994, pp. 145–146). Similarly, a post 9/11 Wrangler-jeans television advertisement featured John Foggerty’s (of Credence Clearwater) ‘‘Fortunate Son’’ as it created an audio-visual correlation between wearing Wranglers and celebrating the American flag. Foggerty’s song, when released in the late 1960s, depicted the voice of an anti-war, anti-rah-rah critic who viewed the privileged class and its mindless flag waiving with disdain. Despite obvious attempts to use the songs in conjunction with a stream of televised images, alien and even hostile to the artistic message, fans of either song still attempt to distinguish the use of the song itself as either true to a specific genre or ripped off to sell goods. The blatant commercialization of product hawking not only threatens artistic idealism but also threatens the illusion of distance between artistic performers and an awe struck audience (Pollock, 1983). Musicians struggle with such commercialization and materialism, especially when it comes to licensing their work. With licensing, musicians walk a fine line between using mainstream television and movies to reach a public who may not have heard their music and having the meaning of their music altered so as to hawk a product. However, despite continued commercialization, utopian idealism does not disappear entirely; punk rock and the British invasion have left behind symbols and objects that other artists and fans have mystified as enduring artistic memories. Furthermore, in the course of expressing allegiance to the work of artists and the integrity of ‘‘artist intent,’’ fans can draw distinctions between any song or genre as inspired by a utopian or crass-capitalistic vision. Rather than assuming that Foggerty or the Ramones ‘‘sold out,’’ fans can assume that the integrity of the song is being threatened by capitalistic machinery. In effect, it may appear that a song or artist is ‘‘destined’’ to lose distinctiveness and merely contribute to the commercialized cacophony in advertisements, stadiums, and supermarkets. However, fans and critics work to preserve distinctiveness of the music and to maintain that even the most commercialized artists can still make a provocative difference.

MYSTIFYING DIFFERENCE The British invasion and punk provided viable and provocative alternatives to any preceding sounds, appearances, and a fan base. As correctives they represented differences that made a difference (Bateson, 1972), which

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became revealed through music and concomitant contributions to popular style, dress, discourse, and displays of selves. The consciousness of difference that emerged allowed musicians and fans to regard the genres as distinct and unique, with a capacity to make a significant impact, independent from materialistic and capitalistic enterprises. Celebrations of the distinctiveness of each genre included attention to aesthetics, social class, and presentation of selves. In regard to aesthetics, British and punk musicians used specific symbols and objects to separate their styles and approaches to the art form from preceding popular sounds. The punk ethos of simplicity, for example, was in direct reaction to the increasingly high-tech (and artificial) sounds emanating from studios (Simonelli, 2002). The British mix of rock, blues, and ‘‘messy’’ sounds served a marked contrast to the more saccharine and studio polished hits of the early 1960s. The common notion of ‘‘raising the bar’’ allowed British and punk musicians to mystify their music and themselves as artistically significant in enduring ways. Musicians from each genre created sounds, messages, and images of themselves, which would become measuring rods for future artists, who would be expected to ‘‘rise above’’ the standards established by the genres’ music to create original music. As the music of each genre became more widespread and attached to significant symbols (Mead, 1934), it represented a consciousness appreciated among a collective and widespread fan base. In particular, the aesthetic rhythm of American rock and blues music resonated with the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Although the Beatles would later become celebrated and criticized for using innovative studio-based sounds, their early musical renditions reflected a rawness of style, often relying on the more ‘‘stripped down’’ sound than say, the emerging American studio sound pioneered by producers such as Berry Gordy (of Motown), Brian Wilson (of The Beach Boys), and Phil Spector (and his ‘‘wall of sound’’ – which the Beatles, and later, John Lennon, would eventually employ). Furthermore, rather than merely reproducing American music, the Beatles and Rolling Stones were also in the process of creating their own music. Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards saw themselves in a reciprocal relationship with American counterparts (Starr & Waterman, 2003). They would soon export not only their own interpretations of American rock and blues, but original pieces that would have a great influence on the future of rock and blues in America. The top British Invasion artists saw the possibilities of their enduring ‘‘success’’ and enduring ‘‘success in the name of’’ rock music as based, in part, on writing, performing, and producing their own, rather than ‘‘other people’s music’’ (cf. Bennett, 1980).

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Also, a distinct punk culture in New York City emerged in the early 1960s, characterized by ‘‘downsizing’’ the number of people involved in making the music, ‘‘dressing down’’ for musical occasions, rejecting bourgeoisie standards for sounds and lyrics, and providing an ‘‘anyone can do this’’ attitude toward making music and performing it (Eriksen, 1980). The punk musicians, promoters, and concertgoers sought alternative forms of expression that could be produced inexpensively and on small stages. The appeal of some of the performers also drew on theatrical techniques that emphasized raw emotional displays and energetic creations of personae, even at the expense of displaying musical talent (Double, 2007, p. 37). Audiences had become familiar with such displays and still regarded them as novel (e.g., the ‘‘theatre of the absurd’’ device of breaking the ‘‘invisible wall’’ between performers and audience members). In this context, New York punk began within the avant-garde circles of 1960s Manhattan, a subculture influenced by groups like the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls. Each of these groups drew from a theatre of the absurd to create challenges to an audience who had become accustomed to ‘‘being entertained’’ as they sat passively. Such challenges made for provocative performances but also symbolized efforts of punk musicians to legitimize unusual orientations to music, fans, dress, demeanor, and the stage itself that deviated from standard concerts and presentations (McNeil & McCain, 1997; Frith, 1978). This approach brought an audience into the performance, calling attention to the performers as they interacted with emergent performers (the audience). Punk bands emerged locally throughout the country and further displayed a consciousness of difference through their names (e.g., The Dead Kennedys, Carcass) that indicated a self-conscious separation from other popular cultural performers (Levine & Stumpf, 1983). Creating separation and distance through name, style, dress, sound, and lyrics represented a desire for aesthetic exploration defined within the punk theatre. When the Ramones emerged, the icon of self-made punk bands emerged; they dressed in a do-it-yourself style (McRobbie, 1988), played their own instruments (if only minimally), and wrote lyrics that defiantly expressed their adolescent frustrations. Following the Ramones, groups such as Blondie and Talking Heads celebrated their ‘‘amateur status’’ by showing up in clubs after working full-time shifts and playing through the night as if they were using the stage for practice time. Mystifying difference also involves representing class consciousness in the music itself (mostly through lyrics). British rock groups, especially the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, identified themselves in regard to visible class differences in Britain. England’s distinct class stratification system

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became all the more visible, symbolically speaking, as American popular culture began to haunt Europe in the post–World War II 1950s and 1960s. During this time, many prominent members of the British establishment expressed strong antipathy for American cultural products (Curtis, 1987, p. 133). In contrast, John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the working class and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the middle class celebrated the antielitism that characterized appearances, sounds, discourse, and emotions expressed by American rock artists, many of whom were either AfricanAmerican (Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry), or rural Southern and Southwestern Caucasian (Elvis, Buddy Holly). The music called out responses in musicians and fans that dramatized their working-class status (or allegiance to working-class status) in ways that could lend them prestige. British rock musicians and fans could see themselves as separate from elites in terms defined by these musicians and fans, rather than in terms defined by elites. Thus, when the early Beatles and Rolling Stones were playing Liverpool and London bars and covering African-American and rural American Caucasian bands, British fans saw them as harbingers of a new sound rather than as ‘‘copycats’’ of imported (and inferior) Americana. The emergence of a punk consciousness of difference also represented a growing awareness of class differences, but from a post-1960s vantage point. The punk movement that emerged in mid-1970s England, led by the Sex Pistols and defined more musically by the Clash was centered on the political and economic differences between punks and the rest of upper middle-class Britain (Simonelli, 2002). The sociopolitical and economic climate of London was centered primarily on class issues. By June, 1976, UK unemployment was at its highest since 1940 (Savage, 2001, p. 229). Also, race issues between Londoners and immigrants, street violence, neofascists, police, and socialism all contributed to a focus on dramatic demographic differences (Marcus, 1989, p. 453). British youth were in an ‘‘impossible double-bind: intelligent in a working-class culture which did not value intelligence, yet unable to leave that culture because of lack of opportunity’’ (Savage, 2001, p. 114). Groups like the Sex Pistols and Clash transferred this frustration to music, an outlet not to necessarily display talent but to publicly present the anxiety and rebelliousness of their fellow youth. Mystifying the idealism of pop/rock music also involves changes in how musicians and fans perceive themselves as objects (Mead, 1934). Changes in perception on the part of fans, musicians, and critics involve recognition of the music as extension of themselves and therefore as forms of ‘‘identity documents’’ about who they claim to be (Strauss, 1959). Celebrating

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differences in regard to objectified selves can be a source of status and prestige, especially as it invites identification with provocative subgroups (Robinson, Buck, & Cuthbert, 1991). Musicians and fans can announce their differences through a universe of appearance (Stone, 1962) by wearing particular clothes, grooming themselves in particular ways, and playing music in public. Metaphorical masks and visual costumes became a method in which musicians (and fans) exaggerated cultural, symbolic, and political differences, which provided a foundation for a shared identification. Mystifying presentation of selves involves considerable tension between positive and negative evaluations of artists and fans. Earlier, we described how mystifying aesthetic differences raises the bar for artists’ performances and creates a lightening rod that draws attention from various perspectives in a popular culture. The British invasion and punk music generated widespread enthusiasm as well as disdain. Musicians and fans associated with the British invasion and punk appealed to real and imagined images of outsiders who generated distinct sounds and who displayed distinct styles of appreciating such sounds. Negative reactions by people in either legitimate or conventional positions added to the perception of these musical groups and fans as being bold enough to sing and appreciate music that others would disparage. The literal outsider status of the Beatles and Rolling Stones (as invaders) had multiple symbolic consequences in regard to how American audiences would perceive them. The Beatles in particular presented themselves as friendly foreigners, making for a unique blend of being disarming and provocative simultaneously. Their ease with which they could play to the television cameras provided ‘‘camera ready’’ sophistication that American media and viewers had not seen in regard to young celebrities (Bayles, 1994, pp. 118–121). In music, Elvis and other young performers such as Buddy Holly either dramatically subordinated themselves in front of the camera or exhibited a wild recklessness that seemed to feed into stereotypes of the young rock musician (e.g., Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis). In sports, the young athlete of the 1950s and 1960s presented a modest and quiet version of the heroic self, replete with a clean-cut look of the post–World War II professional. In contrast, the Beatles expressed a theatrical cool-ness through quick discourse and distinctly different appearances (long hair), which inspired by Beatles look-alike and sound-alike contests (Curtis, 1987, p. 141). Punks also exhibited provocative differences through their public appearances, but without much effort to disarm critics. Whereas the Beatles and Rolling Stones drew admiration for their dramaturgical sophistication,

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punk musicians (and fans) emphasized authentic displays of the angry outsider (Grossberg, 1992, pp. 224–229). The displays often emerged within the middle-class punk culture (Traber, 2001) representing an open disdain for and deliberate defiance of the etiquette and styles of self-presentation that symbolized middle-class life and norms of camera-readiness. Accordingly, middle-class punks created ‘‘anti-fashion’’ (Gibbs, 1996), or ragamuffin appearances; decorated themselves with dyed hair, tattoos, safety pins (on clothes and skin), and swastika patches and made public conventional back region activities such as vomiting and masturbating. The punk anti-fashion aesthetic had a distinct appeal to female performers, who could play lead guitar and inspire enthusiastic responses based on anger, resentment, and ‘‘getting loud’’ during performances (Holden, 1998). Although rock and pop remained a ‘‘boys club’’ in the punk era, women such as Patti Smith, Joan Jett, Debbie Harry (of Blondie), and Tina Weymouth (of Talking Heads), as well as some ‘‘girl groups’’ (Siouxxie Sue, the Banshees) allowed females to assume central roles on the performance stage. The allowance for female performers who defied conventional ‘‘pop girl’’ behaviors and looks added to the punk mystification of distinct selves. Fans of British invasion and punk music were equally distinct, although in ways that differed dramatically from each other. American and British newspapers and news stations began to display dramatic visual correlations between The Beatles’ popularity and an enthusiastic teenage fan base. Pictures and film/video transmissions of screaming and well-groomed teenagers filled newspaper front pages and news reports. Some observers of the rock scene about began to define the assumed affinity between The Beatles and teenage fans in melodramatic and erotic terms, focusing on anomic, alienated, and egoistic themes, conveyed in the lyrics or rhythms (Grossberg, 1983–1984; Marcus, 1989). Such themes resonated to youth representing a ‘‘desperate need to grow up sanely amid an insane environment’’ (Roszak, 1968, p. 183). News reports mystified fans of British invasion groups as popular cultural stereotypes. Images of teenage male fans, in particular, corresponded to romantic film image of the inarticulate young male in America (displayed most provocatively in The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, and Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean). This image found expression in Roger Daltry’s stuttering in ‘‘My Generation’’ and in Jagger’s coarse social criticism in ‘‘Satisfaction.’’ American teenage fans who were defining themselves as gendered politicos in American Society could read the music of the British Invasion as addressing any number of American youth, from the pictures of adoring females to alienated males.

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In contrast, punk fans, especially from Britain’s working-class areas, prided themselves on more radical and destructive appearances and gestures (Eriksen, 1980). The politics of punk destruction evolved into a call for nihilistic rejection of middle-class values in America and more upper class decorum in England. However, punk also dared to challenge convenient pretenses that characterized the studied avoidance of issues associated with middle- to upper-class propriety. In particular, as Stratton (2007) has argued, the punk culture created discourse about ‘‘elephants in the room’’ in general and growing interest in past atrocities, such as the holocaust, in particular. In this light, punk fans tended to represent and celebrate the blatant outcasts, denizens of the deep fringe, angry radicals, and even selfproclaimed losers. One observer described the typical adolescent punk fan as ‘‘fat, anorexic, pockmarked, acned, stuttering, crippled, scarred, and damaged, and what their new decorations underlined was the failure already engraved in their faces’’ (Marcus, 1989, p. 74). Fans welcomed the images of victimization and stigmatism as badges of courage, and evidence that they belonged to a culture of ‘‘real punks’’ rather than ‘‘pretenders’’ (Fox, 1987). Even so, this consciousness of appearance immediately brought youth marginalized or stigmatized by mainstream public together under a common bond of vulgarity. English youth, in particular, were alienated from the originally rebellious rockers and were now enthralled by the new reformers. Groups such as The Sex Pistols used rock and roll as a weapon against itself (Marcus, 1989)

MYSTIFYING LEGENDARY STATUS British musicians and punks participated in the construction of a mythical pop intellegencia (cf. Mannheim, 1956) that became characterized as combinations of artistic innovation, social criticism, and artistic crusades in the form of rock tours. Fans and critics viewed the key players of each genre as vanguards of new cultural narratives. The narratives emphasized the bonds between the performers, the emotional connections between performers and their fans and critics, and the tie signs created by the fans in relation to the performers and each other. Just as a social self’s performance attains a specialized status through mystification, so do narratives about performances that appeal to a collective memory (Fine, 1996; Katovich & Couch, 1992; Schwartz, 1991). Mystifying the memory of narratives can create nostalgia (which, in turn, can be marketed and absorbed), but it can also create mythical narratives of hope (Mead, 1929;

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Maines, Sugrue, & Katovich, 1983). People can draw on past idealism, not so much to create artificial constructions of utopia, but to honor the memory of utopian visions as sources of inspiration for others. The narratives also symbolized common social pasts relevant to musicians’ places of origin and the transmission of their legendary impact. Common pasts refer to events that connect experiences and provide the foundation for future connections (Katovich & Couch, 1992). People who experience connections to each other draw on common pasts to stratify their memories of people, places, and things so as to create a hierarchy of meaningful experiences. In musical phenomena, a common past extends beyond geographic boundaries and emphasizes the beats, appearances, accomplishments, and lyrics, which fans can celebrate together, even when they do not have a history of interacting with each other. The common pasts imply future connections in that being able to celebrate any genre of music in any place implies that the celebrations can be iterated with the same enthusiastic response. The use of common pasts to mystify musical legends involves melodrama, urban localism, and oral transmission of arrival. Melodrama and urban localism appear in the allusions to the genesis of the British and punk musicians, as well as to the self-referential qualities of their songs. Oral transmission implies that the musical phenomena associated with each genre could not exclusively be accounted for by commercialization and mass media attention. Rather, the culture of acceptance created by a fan base had to be considered when assessing the overall popularity and newsworthiness of British and punk musicians. The melodrama of punk is linked to the aforementioned alternative to several popular sounds and a lower socioeconomic status, heard in low rent and bargain basement joints. The Sex Pistols became the most notable group that characterized a punk melodrama. While music critics have acknowledged that the band was the packaged commodity of Malcolm McLaren, the identities and backgrounds of its members made for the stuff of provocative legends. Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten were both kicked out of their homes before joining the Pistols, squatting together in abandoned London houses. Similarly, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash were both abandoned as children (Gilmore, 1998, p. 167). The frustration screamed in punk shouts were not shouts from elites to a submissive audience but from actual members of the audience. The melodrama created by American punks did conform to the British punk standard of debunking middle-class pretenses and getting back to musical and lyrical basics (Marcus, 1989), but instead of the working-class

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orphans and homeless narratives, the American punks featured performers from middle-class and upper middle-class homes who ‘‘dropped out’’ from established career trajectories. The mythos of American punk became less class-oriented and more in line with a post-1960s notion of opposition (specifically to the music industry), expressions of social alienation (rather than economic alienation, per se), and experimentation with appearances and styles. In contrast to punk melodrama, journalists, music critics, and commentators in general described the melodrama of the British invasion, especially the Beatles’ arrival into America, in broad historic terms (as a cultural phenomenon). While many observations about the Beatles’ popularity resemble hyperbole, especially ones pertaining to how the group served as a symbolic and charismatic replacement for JFK (Curtis, 1987, p. 141), their emergence into America coincided amid dramatic social, cultural, and popular cultural changes (Ennis, 1992, p. 280). Their music almost served as a soundtrack for the entire ‘‘sweep’’ of social history, from 1964 until their breakup in 1970. Each of the band members became involved in numerous controversies and predicaments, owing to their status as preeminent rock musicians. For instance, Lennon’s statement that the Beatles were ‘‘more popular than Jesus’’ became noteworthy not only due to the intense emotional responses on the part of Americans but also because he had been given the stage to say such a thing in the first place. The melodrama associated with the Beatles’ cultural narrative probably became most apparent with the rumored death of Paul McCartney (and attendant ‘‘factual’’ clues). The rumor drew on recognition of common pasts among a generation of baby boomers who grew up and passed through adolescence as the group itself evolved and matured. This generation matured with the Beatles and could assume immediate intersubjective understandings among each other that particular clues from other albums meant something to many. Along these lines, the release of the White Album engendered a collective appreciation of it as a ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ rendition of the current pop, rock, and folk-rock sounds. The appreciation of the Beatles’ contributions to the pop/rock scene of the 1960s represented the power of a common past that transcended the individual identities of the artists. This common past resulted in a shared future associated with linking the British music to innovative sounds and styles that lasted until the mid-1970s, a period when new utopian ideals were developing among a new disenfranchised youth (Dotter, 1987). The British Invasion also provided influential discourse, by rock and roll standards, in that it emphasized the performing artists’ ability to write about

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experiences with which audiences could identify. While early Beatles’ hits were standard songs of love and togetherness, discourse in their and the Rolling Stones’ music began to become more complex and autobiographical, influenced no doubt by artists such as Bob Dylan and an emerging folkrock scene. The lyrics and allusions to the artists’ pasts took on a mythical status and made reference to the tangible credibility of the performer who sang what he really felt or experienced. Furthermore, fans’ analysis of the musical lyrics and designations of significance became popular. In regard to the Beatles, songs such as ‘‘Tomorrow Never Knows’’ became recognized as a statement about personal discovery, death, and acid; fans also read ‘‘Norwegian Wood’’ as both a confession about an extramarital affair and the wry observations concerning fleeting intimacy (and adoration). In each of these songs (among others), fans responded not only to state-ofthe-art sounds and uses of musical instruments but also to the everyday and mundane experiences reflected in the songs. The Beatles could do what no other group of fans could do, but they still wrote about day-to-day life – sharing experiences to which any fan could relate (Williams, 2001, pp. 86–88). The notion of urban localism can be illustrated in any musical group’s geographical origins. The identification of location creates a mythical allegiance to an origin – a Mecca – that can stand for a breeding ground of talent. Urban localism contributes to the honoring of aesthetic taste as well as to enthusiastic allegiance to place. The mythical Mecca of Liverpool and the dissemination of a ‘‘Mersey beat’’ characterized the early British invasion. The very title of the invasion alludes to a mythical home of musical giants preparing their next cultural takeover. Prior to the British invasion, the American garage had a mythical place in music, as the place where Buddy Holly became a musician and as a place where the ‘‘garage band’’ could develop. Recollections of the genesis of each group also became the stuff of spatiotemporal legend. We are reminded of the now-famous encounter between Jagger and Keith Richards as they boarded a train in London. Jagger, on his way to class at the London School of Economics, spotted Richards for the first time since grade school. Richards was carrying several blues records. Both began talking about the blues and from there agreed to meet later in the hopes of starting up a band. The more commercialized Meccas of punk were in New York and London. Interestingly, each city also served as a Mecca for the other. When the Ramones played a British tour in 1976, the New York sound had easily penetrated London music. New York was the accessible and dramatic

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Mecca for American punks, and London was the center for more political and vulgar punk music. When the Sex Pistols played ‘‘God Save the Queen’’ in Texas, the youth of Dallas and San Antonio had no immediate frame of reference to the Queen of England. However, a mythical loyalty was established when the Sex Pistols played the song and each American punk shouted along. New York City became the Mecca for American groups like Devo and B52s, from Ohio and Georgia, respectively (Friedlander, 1996). More specifically, particular New York clubs became temples within the Mecca, most notably, CBGBs, the Mercer Arts Center, and Max’s Kansas City. CBGBs itself was the venue for more than 110 rock bands beginning in 1972 (Ennis, 1992, p. 367). These mythical places were not only important for the punk allegiance to place but also for the eventual eruption of local scenes in Cleveland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Allegiance to place can involve celebrations of particular gatherings, including ritualized responses (on the part of fans) to performers. The concert represents a key scheduled gathering that often occurs in places built for other venues (e.g., sports) and that transforms ordinary spaces into legendary pasts (analogous to Durkheim’s description of totems and rituals). One motif of the legend centers on emotional responses of fans and the performers’ reciprocal acknowledgement of fan intensity. Concerts become mystified events themselves, through the charismatic transactions constructed by performers and fans, or the deep, present-centered, and memorable alignments that anchor people to a stimulating encounter. More importantly, the concerts invited shared experiences that could be relayed via a richly textured oral tradition that provided vivid legacies of performers in the absence of other technologies (Couch, 1989). Whereas today, anyone with internet access can click on a performance on ‘‘you tube’ or other sites, the scene in the 1960s and 1970s involved recreations through talk and networking that sustained an oral tradition. In regard to British invasion groups, the scheduled concerts for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who provided enduring memories that created a legendary stats through print, film, and word of mouth. The Beatles in particular solidified their legendary status through a whirlwind two-year tour of the world, transforming places, eliciting unprecedented enthusiasm, and becoming their own mythical industry in the process. They began their first post-invasion tour in August of 1964 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and ended their careers as performers to paying customers in August, 1966, at Candlestick Park (also in San Francisco). In this two-year span, they played across North America, Europe, and in Asia, drawing crowds that far surpassed attendance for events normally held in the

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stadiums in which they performed (Friedlander, 1996, p. 87). Each of the places became transformed from sporting/convention arenas to symbolic narratives of their connections to concert-going fans. Close to forty years later, people who went to any of the concerts will describe not only the gathering in the stadium but also obtaining tickets, preparing for and arriving at the concert, and making the journey back home. We discussed how some fans displayed their adoration for the Beatles by shouting, screaming, and simulating sexual gratification. In turn, the Beatles legendary status for provoking erotic and histrionic responses became even more enhanced with the 1964 release of A Hard Days Night, the cinema verite odyssey of the Beatles as playful characters who become the objects of frenzied adoration (Friedlander, 1996, p. 88). The film also highlighted the aforementioned mystification of difference, as it depicted the group as celebrities who nevertheless retained their working class modesty, wit, and capacity to put the wealthy and culturally affected in their place (Wiener, 1984, pp. 27–30). The Beatles’ musical performances were rather unremarkable, with no more than 12 songs played per concert and crowds so loud that they could barely hear themselves play or sing (Szatmary, 1996, pp. 126–128). In contrast, the Rolling Stones and the Who played much longer sets and overtly invited charismatic transactions by preening, dancing, changing clothes, jumping, ‘‘wind milling’’ (the guitar), and (in the case of the Who’s finale) literally ‘‘striking the set’’ by smashing the equipment. The Beatles’ less remarkable performance still elicited intense fan response and the performers would invite fan enthusiasm through subtle strategies such as Lennon’s wry remarks and McCartney’s flirting (Friedlander, 1996, p. 87). Punk musicians could not match the popularity of British invasion groups and played at much smaller venues, transforming aforementioned clubs (e.g., CBGB’s) into legendary places rather than stadiums. Perhaps, the most legendary set of concerts occurred in the late 1970s, during the Sex Pistols’ ‘‘American invasion tour,’’ which ended at the Winterland Palace (in San Francisco). The tour did not follow customary geographical planning, by including as many urban metropolises as possible. Instead, the Sex Pistols created a ‘‘belly of the beast’’ plan, moving from New York into the Deep South, the Southwest, and then to San Francisco (Marcus, 1989). On the way to Winterland, the Sex Pistols made news by fighting with ‘‘red neck’’ audiences in Alabama and most notably, Texas. One punk fan who saw the Sex Pistols play in Texas told the authors that the performance was reminiscent of the scene in the Blues Brothers in which the band played behind chicken wire so as to not get hit by flying beer bottles.

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The Winterland tour represented the ‘‘last hurrah’’ for punk music of the 1970s and became known for Johnny Rotten’s pronouncement of not only the end of the Sex Pistols but also the end of the integrity of the punk spirit. One attendee at Winterland told the authors ‘‘by the end, everyone looked smashed and defeated. Only the most drugged and outrageous looking fans were still energized. It seemed that for most of us at the fringe, death was in the air.’’ Typical of the punk ethos, the legendary status of Winterland was not revealed in the massive and hysterical adoration that characterized the Beatles, but by the morose, depressing, and fatalistic acceptance of death that characterized the Sex Pistols. While print journalists and documentary filmmakers have made major contributions to the objectified memories of the British groups and punks, fans themselves, through oral accounts, have maintained these groups’ legendary status. Couch (1989) suggested that oral traditions are necessary for building and maintaining relationships that emerge either independent of or in conflict with dominant modes of information transmission. In this regard, oral traditions can contribute to mystification by emphasizing perspectives that print journalists and documentary filmmakers either do not have the time, space, or inclination to explore. Orality can personalize events and establish immediate connections between people transmitting information and people listening to the transmissions. An oral tradition in relation to musical phenomena relates to orality presented by the musician and the orality spread among fans. Musicians’ present orality in their cadences and beats, resembling the patterns in which epics and poems were passed down (Couch, 1989, p. 589). The influx of British bands influenced American teenagers and radios deejays to mimic their accents. Fans seem to make connections and find meaning in the music if they can reproduce the sounds of the artists in everyday discourse. Orality that is spread among fans also refers to the actual word of mouth regarding upcoming phenomena. Similar to how rumors can spread (Shibutani, 1966), emerging musical groups and performers rely on an enthusiastic and cooperative system of oral transmission for their continued presence, especially when they lack access to other forms of media. This spread occurs through various places and rituals, most notably in concerts, meeting places (where fans congregate), and market places (such as independent record stores/music outlets). For instance, sharing of music occurred at concert venues in the early punk scene, in which people traded bootleg tapes that had yet to be produced. The spread of the actual recordings via word of mouth created an underground form of free advertisement.

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Fans and performers found a niche in the American music scene, but an oral tradition was needed for the spread of music across the teenage countryside. While AM radio had begun to play pop rock as early as the mid-1950s, the rapid popularity of the British scene was also due to kids talking about the music with their friends at local clubs or record stores. This is clear in the frenzy of the Beatles. The establishment of an oral tradition in England bore similarities to this tradition in the U.S. South. Working-class towns such as Liverpool relied on an oral tradition because many of the kids couldn’t go to school (Curtis, 1987, p. 133). Similarly, young fans created an oral tradition that focused on the Beatles and Rolling Stones in the United States. It was channeled through mass grassroots publicizing, intense word-of-mouth assessments of the hits (and album tracks), and examples of sounds from independent record stores. Before the Beatles arrived in February, 1964, manager Brian Epstein had already plastered neighborhoods with stickers, ‘‘The Beatles Are Coming,’’ which inspired talk among teens as to who the Beatles were, what music they played, and what they looked like (Miller, 1999, p. 213). On college campuses, students would congregate in local ‘‘student unions’’ to either watch for news about the Beatles or Rolling Stones or compare oral notes. This mass word of mouth campaign was crucial for the cohesion of people for a band that had yet to receive mass publicity. The oral tradition associated with congregating at local record stores has been difficult to maintain amid the rise in electronic media availability. Cities have seen a rash of record store closings due to the availability of online music. However, the British Invasion occurred during the heyday of the local record store. George Martin, the famed producer of the Beatles’ most innovative music, first heard about the Beatles from Epstein in a local London record store. Because record stores were still independent outlets and had not been taken over by large retail corporations, they still accounted for the bulk of record sales. In the local record store, teens could gather while the clerk spun either the latest hit singles, their ‘‘B sides,’’ or other songs (from albums) not widely heard on AM radio. The clerk and store operatives could educate fans about the importance of the album, which was gaining popularity in terms of sales. In 1963, Billboard released its first ‘‘150 Top LPs’’ list. At this same time, LPs sales began to climb after falling to its lowest point in 1963 (Ennis, 1992, p. 345). Together, record stores and grassroots sticker campaigns allowed for a rapid movement of British music across American subgroups. The punk scene did not receive much in the way of television coverage or radio play, which contributed to fans’ intense attachments to orally

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transmitted common pasts and images of authenticity. The only ‘‘Number One Hit’’ that emerged from punk music was banned (the Sex Pistols’ ‘‘God Save The Queen’’) from radio play, and by the end of 1976 (after the Sex Pistols cursed on the Today show in Britain and lost their EMI contract), the television medium and the electronic medium in general virtually neglected punk music. As a consequence, punk bands relied on a distinct and innovative oral tradition for success. Although first starting in the United States, fanzines (the most influential of which was Sniffin’ Glue) began to be quickly distributed with Sex Pistols handbills. The pages were photocopied and often handwritten, implying that urgency and ideologies were more important than professionalism. This word of mouth tradition further expanded when the Sex Pistols began their U.S. tour. There was little publicity from U.S. record companies about their arrival, and FM radio was the only option (and not a very good one). At a time of disco and no college radio, the mass publicity of the Sex Pistols tour was minimal. The band relied on an innovative pipeline for publicity, characteristic of orality and also of attendant print information in the form of handbills and ransomnote lettered posters.

MYSTIFYING POPULARITY ITSELF Because mystified genres can still be used for profitable gain, whatever makes a musical or artistic genre special can be contradicted by common market value. Even so, mystification can inspire contributions to popular cultural symbols and objects that fans and consumers can relate to their own life worlds. The aesthetics associated with the symbols and objects represent a legacy that can be used by future fans and performers to create emerging popular conceptions of any phenomenon. Again, the concomitant production of material objects disseminated for profit and as representative of an idealistic enterprise can become the stuff of myth and legend. In regard to the musical genres, when performers become so popular that they seem to contradict the promise of alternative presentations of selves (e.g., through ‘‘selling out’’ or changing ‘‘without audience permission’’), they also threaten the perceived integrity of the specified music. A number of consequences can emerge from such a contradiction, including a complex correlation between the vilification of the system and the mystification of the music itself. Fans do not perceive the music (or even the artist creating the music) as made for a contradictory ideology; rather, they create the image of the music (and sometimes the artist) as vulnerable for corrupt manipulation

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by capitalists. The phenomenon thus acquires a mythical past (Maines et al., 1983, pp. 164–165) in which perceptions of the substance of the music and its enterprise continue to emphasize its revolutionary potential even after becoming absorbed into a contradictory ideology. The artists’ popularity also puts them in positions to become emergent political actors, or voices of ‘‘their generation.’’ Lennon, perhaps the most notable political voice, used his ‘‘moveable stage’’ to meld music, social commentary, political protest, and lifestyle statements to redefine himself as a member of the political arena (cf. Eyerman & Jamison, 1998). The apparent downside of Lennon’s emergent political consciousness diminished his youthful sense of play as it accentuated his more resolute critical self more in tune with political realities than innovative (and fanciful) sounds. While emergent political actors, nee artists, may symbolize the spectacle more than represent an obdurate force, the formation and maintenance of a historical reference in the music often develops in light of artists’ politicizing their own works. Artists such as Lennon adopted the roles of the intelligentsia and developed a ‘‘historical reality of the present’’ in regard to their music (Mannheim, 1936, p. 154). Rather than being sounds, melodies, and beats, music becomes anchored to the symbols and objects of current historical and political scenes – sort of becoming used as soundtracks for images and events. Some artists do manage to avoid being political voices but must convey authentic commitment to their art as they become more celebrated and wealthier simultaneously. The various personae cultivated by Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones involved blatant acceptance of materialistic gains and hedonistic pursuits while paying homage to and identifying with various musical, social, and cultural outsiders. Over time, the Stones enjoyed more and more critical and popular acclaim as successful artists who survived ongoing turmoil, associations with violence and misogyny, drug overdoses and addiction, and their own spoils of monetary and cultural success. Still together (with Jagger and Richards as the enduring core) they can ‘‘get away with’’ charging hundreds of dollars for even run-of-the-mill concert tickets, demanding on-line registration fees as a ‘‘first step’’ to applying for concert tickets, playing for once despised ‘‘suits’’ and elites, and even accepting knighthood (Jagger) without being labeled ‘‘total sell-outs.’’ The popularity of punk music allowed for its transformation into ‘‘new phenomena’’ (e.g., new wave) that appeared less vulgar and displayed greater fascination with glamour and flamboyancy. Fame and notoriety may have been used as a stage for the display of utopian ideals, but the stage also allowed for incremental commitments to material wealth and fame, not to

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mention transformation of the music from on-stage crude to studio polished. Even so, despite warranted claims that British and American punk became absorbed in 1980s new wave and 1990s grunge as their utopian ideals failed to materialize, the process of absorption itself revealed a satisfactory ‘‘pay-off’’ for punk fans. Punk groups such as the Ramones ‘‘made it against the odds’’ and symbolized not only the ‘‘anyone can’’ play ethos but also the mythological Capitalist ideal that ‘‘anyone can make it.’’ The mystification of popularity also involved issues of gender and situating selves as gendered beings. The issue of gender, on the surface anyway, became a study in contrasting depictions of masculinity, and to what appearances masculinity would be anchored. With regard to the British invasion, the Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ avant-garde appearances predated the current ‘‘metrosexual look,’’ giving rise to the foppish and mod styles of the 1960s (and in turn, the speculation that boys were becoming ‘‘girl-like’’ in their appearances). However, the Beatles and Rolling Stones displayed an aggressive style of writing and playing (their own) music that could not be mistaken for anything but masculine (at least in terms of cultural idealization). Their apparent feminization in style served as a marked contrast to reclaiming a more masculine edge in their music. Punks also created novel anchor points in regard to gendered placements but displayed more decidedly ‘‘back alley’’ and ‘‘flop house’’ looks while asserting masculinity. The girls in punk created their own ‘‘anti-feminine’’ styles and visual images of themselves as popular cultural female heirs to Brando and Dean. As mentioned earlier, a punk style of music connected to male working-class criticisms in England and to the social alienation experienced by young males in America. The stripped-down styles and appearances served as a way for males to reassert their culturally idealized masculinity in the wake of a more late 1970s feminized male look in disco, pop music, and even an emerging ‘‘new wave.’’

CONCLUSION We argue that the British Invasion and early punk music have become mystified on a wider level and among a larger audience than many other musical phenomena. We also note that while particular elements of the British Invasion and early punk have become mystified, their enduring mystification relies on a more generalized sense of what each genre represented and continues to represent over time. More specifically, owing to their overall mystification as musical and stylistic correctives, their

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legacies remain mystified in spite of mass commercialization and cooptation into advertising and film soundtracks. In this light, we suppose that the mass commercialization of the Beatles and Rolling Stones has reaffirmed their mystified appeal, whereas the continued commercialization and absorption of punk reaffirms its mystified ability to recreate itself as (temporarily) noncommercialized music. Foucault and Boulez (1988) proposed that the presence of a mystified artistic past creates a blurred perception in which the listener cannot distinguish between music that has been traditionally popular and new music that is meant to innovate or introduce unfamiliar sounds. Thus, contemporary music is fixed between an unbending tradition of familiarity and passing bursts of invention. Despite this criticism of contemporary music and its relation to the artistic histories of musical phenomena, we contend that a rigid frontierism – the process of using older, mystified phenomena to create new ones – is a crucial characteristic of new sounds, aesthetics, and tastes in response to the ‘‘raising of the bar’’ achieved by previous phenomena. The older sound represents the ‘‘bar’’ to be met, and the newer sounds represent the efforts to reach it. Thus, for a new sound or aesthetic to become successful and perhaps mystified, it must first meet and then surpass a standard set before. Borrowing language from Foucault and Boulez, rigid frontierism illustrates that while creators of new musical phenomena attempt to move in a self-determined path, they are heavily dependent on achievements made in previous musical experiences (evident in the rock journalist’s favorite question for popular new artists: who are your major influences?). However, this is not to say that contemporary music is in a static state of dormancy, but rather amidst a process of perpetual redevelopment involving the remystification of older phenomena. Once mystified, differences, legends, and popularity will be recreated in later musical encounters. Technological advancements and marketing strategies have led to new innovations such as sampling of previous sounds, greatest hits albums and remastered recordings, and the reemergence of garage bands with ‘‘old’’ sounds or styles. Such movements illustrate an allegiance to common pasts with the intentions of creating a new leading edge in musical artistry, thus attributing meaning to the influence beyond the momentary concert or album through which the music was first performed. Certainly, a mystified artistic past can ‘‘last’’ through a later generation’s appreciation and recreation of it. Thus, rigid frontierism seems to be a necessary component for the mystified longevity of a musical phenomenon.

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However, perhaps a better lens through which to view musical phenomena is one of commerce and aesthetic. While Foucault and Boulez contend that the modernized commercialization and technological advancements of contemporary music have blended sounds and images and thus confused the listener, we suggest that a commercialized aesthetic actually sheds light upon a new aesthetic in the music. While seemingly oxymoronic, a commercialized aesthetic can have an unintentional effect of releasing the esprit de corps of the original music’s performers and audience. The commercialized aesthetic of a performer concerns how a mystified artistic past, such as rare concert footage of a particular artist, is ‘‘repackaged’’ through processes of opposition, such as using the concert footage to sell a product on television. While the intended effects are to make profit, the past is inadvertently mystified; what becomes mystified is that which cannot be changed. The style of the performer, especially the voice, becomes the most accessible piece of aesthetic in the phenomenon. While, as mentioned, the strategic reframing of an artist can change its original intentions, the voice of the performer cannot be altered. For example, a re-released album of an early British punk band, with new album art, re-mastered recordings, and a bonus DVD, has the ability to regenerate or completely transform the original intentions of the performer. The artist’s voice remains stable and becomes unique and mystified in the commercialized aesthetic simultaneously. In essence, a mystified past that has been ‘‘demystified’’ by commercial intentions leaves in its wake a newly mystified aesthetic. Gendered styles that emerged with the music became evident in comparison and contrast to a feminization of music. Both the British Invasion and the punk music followed a period in popular culture history in which the music was becoming over-produced, computerized, and, to put it simply, sappy. The British Invasion followed a period of 1950s Wall of Sound bubblegum romance. Similarly, the American and British punk movement reacted to the disco and digital rock era of the 1970s with a more stripped-down, homemade crudeness. Each of these phenomena can be adequately described as a testosterone-influenced, almost violent reaction to the less startling sounds of music preceding them (a similar argument can be made for the more recent rap and hip hop phenomenon). These masculine sounds and styles can reemerge and even influence female performers when the mystified phenomenon becomes commercialized and the music is reduced to its most fundamental elements – voice and style (Katovich & Makowski, 1999).

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While a rigid frontierism exhibited by new artists and a newly mystified commercial aesthetic of the older artist can help create an enduring artistic past, another point worth mentioning borrows, in part, from an existential understanding of human experience. When significant experiences connected to common pasts become transformed (in meaning) or reinterpreted, the newly accessible sounds and aesthetic of artistic products hold true to its followers in different and more symbolic ways. While new listeners may be attracted to the newly mystified style of the performer or a modern artist’s reinterpretation of it, still others attribute meaning to the aesthetic in its most original sense. Those who saw the artist perform, bought an original album, or even learned about the artist’s aesthetic and message through an oral tradition passed down from an older generation still hold allegiance to the artist despite any new developments. Our aforementioned witness of the last Sex Pistols concert in San Francisco will most likely memorialize the moment in a more symbolic sense than a new fan who reads about it in a pop magazine. It would be overly trite to suggest the next musical phenomena to attract the mystified status of difference, legend, or popularity. However, the processes previously illustrated will most likely reemerge in the mystification process of any musical event, sound, or aesthetic. The mystification of musical phenomena is dependent on the timeless progression of blending commercialization and reverence (Alter & Koepnick, 2004). The strength and duration of music’s mystified status is dependent on numerous external conditions, namely, a rigid frontierism exhibited my later artists, a ‘‘commercialized aesthetic,’’ and an attached existential understanding. In spite of these conditions, it is best to follow the advice of Pierre Boulez (1983) in his conversation with Michel Foucault (p. 322): ‘‘One would rather be tempted to say: gentlemen, place your bets, and for the rest, trust in the air du temps. But, please, play! Play! Otherwise, what infinite secretions of boredom!.’’

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NARRATIVE FORM AND TEMPORALITY IN PUBLIC DISCOURSE: ROMANCE, TRAGEDY, AND AMERICA’S PRESENCE IN IRAQ$ Robert L. Young ABSTRACT This chapter investigates the use of prospective (i.e., future oriented) narratives as rhetorical devices in public discourse. Drawing on recent narrative research and Northrop Frye’s discussion of generic narrative forms in literature, I contrast the classic Romantic Narrative of America’s occupation of Iraq presented in President Bush’s State of the Union Addresses (SUAs) over the last 6 years of his presidency with the alternative narrative projected in the Democratic Party’s formal responses to those addresses. My analysis demonstrates how Bush’s story of America’s actions in Iraq was constructed through the course of those speeches – by exploiting both narrative form and temporality – and how it constrained the articulation of counter narratives by the Democrats. The results support the general thesis that, by virtue of a neo-rhetoric centered $

A draft of this chapter was presented at the 2008 annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in Boston.

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around strategic frames and culturally resonant narratives, the Bush Administration in particular and conservatives in general successfully dictated public discourse on important national issues.

As an integral part of human social relations and interaction, spoken discourse is a focus of research across a number of academic disciplines, especially in the social sciences (e.g., Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Tannen, 1989; Sacks, 1995). Recently, the attention of scholars has been drawn to the role of narratives in the construction of such talk (Franzosi, 1998; Maines, 1993; Stubbs, 1983). Although narratives typically focus on past events, stories of the future are also a common element in both informal and formal acts of communication. Whether they express the plans and goals of individuals or the public ruminations and policy proposals of civic leaders and politicians, ideas about the future are frequently expressed in narrative form. Recent work (Young, 2007), which will serve as a theoretical launch pad for this research, suggests that during routine social interaction individuals often have storied visions of the future, which remain vague, under-defined, and unexpressed as long as interaction remains unproblematic. However, when situational problems arise, actions become more purposive and images of the immediate future are likely to take on a more elaborate narrative form. For example, in a small group context, if one interactant introduces an obviously contentious topic, other participants are likely to imagine various responses and counter responses, which some but not all will see as leading to an argument that in turn might be imagined as ending badly or amicably. Although such expectancy narratives (Young, 2007) are necessarily contingent in that frequently they must be revised in light of the actions of others, they nevertheless provide scripts for the formation of action. Thus, although prospective narration often begins as a form of thinking about the immediate future, it reflexively influences the course of interaction by informing the actions of individuals and their responses to each other (Young, 2007). Conceptualized in this way, much of micro-level social interaction can be viewed as a product of narrative conflict. Moreover, in a general sense, I argue that many public actions such as those taken by actors in the political arena are also the result of narrative conflict. Before proceeding, it is important to acknowledge some fundamental differences between emergent interpersonal discourse and the kind of politically guided public discourse I discuss in this chapter. First, the speech acts (Austin, 1975; Searle, 1969) of everyday discourse are oriented primarily to and are thus contingent upon the expected and perceived

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responses of co-present interlocutors, whereas public discourse is responsive to the expected and perceived reactions of a more passive audience, which often only has mediated access to the speaker. Second, as the work of Goffman (1959, 1967) and other observers of social interaction have suggested, all social actions are performative inasmuch as they are constructed with particular audiences in mind. However, most performances in everyday face-to-face interaction emerge within the situation and are thus largely improvisational, whereas the performances of public discourse are to a much greater extent scripted. For example, such public communications as presidential State of the Union Addresses (SUAs) are carefully vetted by multiple advisors before they are delivered, and the same is true – although perhaps to a lesser extent – of opposition party rebuttals. Third, the vicissitudes and pace of face-to-face interaction are such that expectancy narratives rarely reach the level of elaboration found in spoken narratives, especially those constructed as part of public discourse. As a result, we should expect the narratives of public discourse to be more fully articulated than those that emerge in everyday social encounters. Thus, it is largely because of these differences that our understanding of public discourse in particular can be enhanced by understanding the ways in which futureoriented narratives and counter narratives shape such discourse. In this work I address the issue of how narratives serve as rhetorical devices (McGuire, 1990) by focusing on how the Bush Administration’s story of America’s actions in Iraq constrained the articulation of counter narratives in the formal responses of the Democratic Party. Drawing on recent narrative analysis and on Northrop Frye’s (1971) discussion of narrative forms in classic literature, I contrast the classic romantic narrative presented in President Bush’s SUAs over the last 6 years of his presidency (2002–2008) with the contrasting images projected by the Democratic Party’s formal responses to those addresses.

NARRATIVE FORM AND TEMPORALITY AS RHETORICAL DEVICES Common Narrative Forms Constructing discourse around culturally recognizable and compelling narrative forms that both resonate with and elicit recognizable cultural values is the primary rhetorical device explored in this analysis. The

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methodology employed is not so much a structural analysis (Barthes, 1980; Frye, 1971) as an analysis of the artful exploitation of certain narrative forms. Still, some would argue that using the presumed existence of ‘‘pre generic plot structures’’ (White, 1978, p. 61) as a starting point imposes a rigid deductive frame on a highly idiosyncratic process and thus biases analysis. However, given that narration is a universal form of human communication covering an infinite number of topics, Barthes (1980, p. 252) argues that a completely inductive approach to narrative analysis is capable of generating only ‘‘modest description of a few highly individualized varieties.’’ More to the point, however, to the extent that the stories of a given culture are constructed around certain narrative forms, it is reasonable to assume that those forms are frequently called upon by members of the culture to grant coherence to the events of life (cf. Denzin, 1989). As such, they are susceptible to being exploited by those who wish to cast particular ideological frames around events in order to control public discourse. Frye suggests that there are four basic narrative forms in western literature: Comedy, Romance, Tragedy, and Satire or Irony, each of which is marked by its own unique structure. Most relevant to this research are the Romantic and Tragic forms. Briefly, the classic romantic narrative is characterized by a hero’s quest for a desired object or state of being. The quest is thwarted by villainous forces and a series of obstacles or challenges, which the hero must confront in an epic struggle before emerging victorious. This form allows little latitude for other characters who are limited to being either for or against the quest. ‘‘If they assist it they are idealized as simply gallant or pure; if they obstruct it they are caricatured as simply villainous or cowardly’’ (Frye, 1971, p. 195). Romantic quests involve three necessary stages: 1) the perilous journey, 2) a critical struggle or battle, and 3) the ultimate exaltation of the hero. Frequently, in the darkest hours of the struggle, glimpses of a brighter future are represented in symbolic form, and in the end a better society is realized. The Tragic narrative is also organized around a quest, and up to a certain point is similar in structure to that of the Romance. However, unlike the romantic hero, the tragic protagonist is unable to overcome external forces as a result of some personal flaw, often involving hubris and selfdeception. Indeed, in the tragic tale, the darkest and most villainous forces may be a part of the hero, who eventually becomes isolated from society. Tragedy is thus fundamentally a story of human failing. On the basis of their analysis of life narratives, Gergen and Gergen (1988) describe three other more linear forms – stability, progressive, and regressive narratives. As a story unfolds, the protagonist moves through time circumstances may be portrayed as improving (progressive narrative), getting

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worse (regressive narrative), or remaining essentially unchanged (stability narrative). Moreover, the basic forms defined by Frye can be described according to changes in the evaluative trajectory of the protagonist’s fate (Gergen & Gergen, 1988). For example, a series of alternating progressive and regressive phases culminating at the low point of a regressive turn would characterize a tragedy, whereas a romance might follow the same narrative course as long as it ended on a clearly progressive trajectory.

Narrative Temporality Many scholars have suggested that the ability of humans to make sense of life, in large measure, depends on our ability to frame events in terms of relevant narratives (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Gubrium & Holstein, 1998). Although traditionally the term has been used to describe stories of the past, current and possible future events are also understood and communicated through narratives. Margolin (1999) broadens the traditional view of narrative, de-privileging the classical retrospective form by acknowledging the importance of the concurrent and prospective forms. The hallmark of concurrent or present-tense narration, which is found in diaries, diary novels, and various forms of contemporary experimental literature (Margolin, 1999, p. 150), is that the narrator is experiencing and figuring out events as they unfold in a sequence of temporal phases. Because such events are best understood in the context of past events and a set of currently agreed upon ‘‘facts,’’ any interpretation of contemporary actions or events is inherently conditional. At the same time, concurrent narratives – for example, those that portray success or failure – can be employed to justify or condemn past actions that otherwise might have been read differently, or to presage a brighter or bleaker future, irrespective of past failures or successes. Finally, because the consequences of current actions can only be known in the future (thus the phrase: ‘‘That remains to be seen.’’), they are often justified in terms of possible or contingent outcomes. Thus, speakers often find it rhetorically useful to augment concurrent narratives with a bracketed form of prospective narration. Prospective or future tense narration involves the storied telling of events that have not yet occurred. Although in literature such stories typically are embedded within a larger retrospective narrative, they are common features of everyday discourse (Young, 2007). The standard form of prospective narration, according to Margolin, involves successively: (1) the expression of the narrator’s belief that certain actions and events will transpire, (2) claims that

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certain possibilities exist, contingent on particular future actions or conditions, (3) the expression of the narrator’s desire that certain positive outcomes – from the perspective of the audience – will occur and/or certain negative outcomes will not occur, and (4) the narrator’s imposition of obligations on addressees to initiate certain actions to produce the desired outcome. As a result of the potentially reinforcing nature of retrospective, concurrent, and prospective narratives, I suggest that the artful blending of all three narrative temporalities into a coherent master narrative can constitute an effective rhetorical tool in both interpersonal and public discourse. However, although face-to-face narration might involve references to coherent past events and definitions of current situations, as well as projections of possible future events, it nevertheless transpires in a temporally limited present. Public discourse, by contrast, has a more open and ongoing quality in that it evolves over a more extended period of time during which elements of any narrative telling can be and often are challenged by competing accounts. Thus, public discourse relies more heavily upon an additional set of linguistic devices to maintain a coherent and consistent narrative quality over time and in the face of events and counter-arguments that might challenge the validity of earlier interpretations and projections. The use of retrospective, concurrent, and prospective narratives to mutually reinforce one another to create a sense of narrative coherency and rhetorical credibility is one such device. Nowhere is this more transparent than in the arena of political discourse.

THE STORYTELLER IN CHIEF AND THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS For at least the past half century, scholars have recognized the importance of storytelling to the success of American presidents. John Kenneth White, author of ‘‘Storyteller in Chief: Why Presidents Like to Tell Tales,’’ argues that effective presidential leadership depends on the office holder’s understanding of and facility at telling and retelling the ‘‘American Story’’ to the American people (White, 1997). At the center of this story is the American Dream – the realization of individual success made possible by the core American values of freedom and equality of opportunity. The second element of the national story is the idea of ‘‘American Exceptionalism,’’ which White (1997, p. 55) describes as the belief that America is a special place, born of Devine Providence. Although others use the term somewhat

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differently, this view of American Exceptionalism implies a strong belief in American Superiority, and it would be difficult to deny that many Americans hold such a belief. Because of their ability to rally support by playing on national pride, narratives that resonate with the American Story are common ingredients in many presidential speeches, especially SUAs. In fact, these elements of the American Story have become so central to the national ethos that they constitute an ‘‘ideological straitjacket’’ within which the president must perform (White, 1997, p. 58). In addition to being tethered to the American Story, SUAs are somewhat structurally constrained by three common processes: ‘‘(1) public meditations on values, (2) assessments of information and issues, and (3) policy recommendations’’ (Campbell & Jamieson, 1990, p. 54). Thus, although SUAs are institutionalized occasions on which Presidents retell the national story within contexts that suit their rhetorical needs, those speeches are nevertheless severely ideologically as well as rhetorically constrained. Indeed, it has been argued that largely because of those constraints, the SUA is of central importance in sustaining the Presidency as an institution (Campbell & Jamieson, 1990, p. 63). Modern SUAs are delivered once a year – typically in January – before a joint session of Congress and international radio and television audiences. They are constitutionally mandated communications from the President to the Congress regarding the status of the nation. More than simply a forum for communication, however, they provide the President an opportunity to define and justify actions on various fronts and provide a narrative frame for public discourse on important topics (Lakoff, 2002, 2004). Given the communicative power afforded the President by this highly visible platform, it has been the practice since 1966 that the opposition party deliver a rebuttal, typically broadcast from a studio without a live audience. Thus, in recent decades, SUAs and opposition rebuttals have become a form of highly scripted discourse in which elements of the American Story are subjected to public debate.

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESSES AND REBUTTALS, 2003–2008 The following narrative analysis of President Bush’s SUAs and the Democratic rebuttals begins with the 2003 speech, which immediately preceded the invasion of Iraq, and ends with the last official Address of the Bush presidency, delivered in January 2008.

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January 2003 On January 28, President Bush used the 2003 SUA to prepare the American people for the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. Although war had not been declared, American troops were being assembled in the Middle East in preparation. A considerable portion of Bush’s speech that night was devoted to setting the stage for America’s quest to rid the world of terrorist threats (Chang & Mehan, 2007). In Frye’s (1971, p. 187) words, ‘‘the hero of romance is analogous to the mythical Messiah or deliverer who comes from an upper world, and his enemy is analogous to the demonic powers of the lower world.’’ As one of the most aggressively religious and moralistic presidents in recent memory (Shogan, 2006, p. 176), Bush’s use of messianic language and symbolism can be found throughout his SUAs. In the 2003 speech, he was quite clear in justifying America’s invasion of Iraq as a moral quest, casting the United States as the hero-nation that had a ‘‘calling’’ to ‘‘make this world better.’’ Saddam Hussein, by contrast, was cast as a demonic ‘‘tyrant’’ who was ‘‘assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons,’’ having already used them on whole villages – leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained – by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

By contrast, Bush portrayed America as a powerful yet peace-loving heronation that had waited with the rest of the world 12 years for Iraq to disarm. Reinforcing that image, he outlined plans to ask the UN Security Council to convene of February 5th to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world,’’ but warned that although ‘‘this nation fights reluctantlyyif war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means – sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military – and we will prevail. (Bush, 2003)

That speech, its focus, and the situation surrounding it posed a serious problem for the Democrats in formulating a rebuttal. There was no denying the tyranny of Saddam’s rule, and Bush burnished his tough and heroic talk with U.S. intelligence claims that Iraq had an ‘‘advanced nuclear weapons Program’’ and enough chemical weapons to kill millions of people along with some 30,000 munitions capable of delivering those toxins. Given the structural similarity of the romantic and tragic narratives, it is likely that

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many Democrats and other Americans envisioned Bush’s heroic quest as ending in a more tragic way. But the hegemonic ideology of American Exceptionalism militated against suggesting that the President was setting the stage for another tragedy in the vein of Viet Nam. Moreover, many Democrats, apparently taken in by what Hartnett and Stengrim (2006, p. 40) refer to as the ‘‘president’s operation of deception’’ regarding weapons of mass destruction, were also convinced of the threat posed by Saddam. Thus, their response, delivered by Governor Gary Locke of Washington on February 14, largely supported the President’s effort to ‘‘eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il of North Korea.’’ However, they did emphasize that: ‘‘We must convince the world that Saddam Hussein is not America’s problem alone – he’s the world’s problem. We urge President Bush to stay this course for we are far stronger when we stand with other nations than when we stand alone.’’ What is especially noteworthy about the Democratic response is that whereas Bush had devoted approximately one-third of his speech to Iraq, the Democrats devoted only a few lines to the topic. Moreover, their brief rebuttal of Bush’s lengthy and impassioned comments on Iraq was subtle and seemingly designed primarily to segue into a domestic narrative, with the Democratic Party cast as the hero-party of the people. Moreover, that narrative would be the centerpiece of every Democratic response for the next 5 years. Lock asserted that for America ‘‘to be strong abroad, we need to be strong at home. And today, in too many ways, our country is headed in the wrong direction. We are missing the opportunity to strengthen America for the future.’’ The speech clearly portrayed the Democratic minority as preservers of American strength and protectors of the American people, not just from foreign threats, but also from the administration’s misguided domestic policies. Focusing largely on party differences relative to the economy, health care, and the environment, Lock recited a bullet point list of democratic initiatives to ‘‘restore prosperity so the United States once again becomes the great job engine it was in the 1990s.’’ The quest the Democrats would lead would be focused on protecting American citizens, not by waging war in a foreign land, but by rebuilding the economy and enhancing homeland security. ‘‘In this unprecedented fight against terror, the frontlines are in our own neighborhoods and communitiesy a year-and-a-half after September 11th, America is still far too vulnerable’’ (Lock, 2003). Thus rather than openly critiquing the President’s Romantic narrative of America’s coming military struggle, the Democrats offered a critical assessment of his domestic policies, which they directly linked to one of

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Bush’s primary rationales for invading Iraq, homeland security. Perhaps most importantly, however, the speech subtly introduced an implicit narrative theme that would be echoed in subsequent responses: By unilaterally entering an unpopular war the Administration would weaken America economically, politically, and militarily, and thus threaten the realization of the American Dream for millions of American citizens.

January 2004 Shortly after the President’s 2003 speech, coalition forces invaded Iraq, deposed Saddam Hussein and declared Iraq a free emerging democracy. Although in May 2003 Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq, the struggle got bloodier and more difficult in the ensuing months. Nevertheless, in his January 2004 SUA, Bush described America’s romantic quest in terms bordering on a Progressive Narrative. Last January, Iraq’s only law was the whim of one brutal man. Today our coalition is working with the Iraqi governing Council to draft a basic law, with a Bill of RightsyOf the 55 officials of the former regime we have captured or killed 45. Our forces are on the offensiveyWe are dealing with these thugs in Iraq, just as surely as we dealt with Saddam Hussein’s evil regime.

Emboldened by early military success, the President’s romantic quest began to grow in scope as he linked other successes in the Middle East to America’s show of military might. Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not. And one reason is clear: For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America.

Given those early successes, he again espoused the ideology of American Exceptionalism, vowing: ‘‘America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle EastyAmerica is a Nation on a missionyAmerica acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom’’ (Bush, 2004). Nothing in the President’s address suggested the difficulties that would come in the following months and years. According to the future projected on January 20, 2004, America was on a progressive course to the liberation of the entire Middle East. The Democrats’ response to that address, delivered by House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle on January 21,

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mirrored much of their 2003 response, placing greater emphasis on domestic issues and accusing the President of cronyism, mismanaging education, health care, and homeland security. Having already reinforced the President’s own efforts to link Iraq and homeland security, Pelosi cited the Administration’s lax standards for inspection of containers coming into American Ports and security at nuclear power plants, and a lack of adequate coordination of first responders such as police and fire departments. Moreover, the critique of Bush’s Iraq policy was significantly stronger and more pointed than the previous year’s. ‘‘The President led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition’’. That critique presented a direct renunciation of the President’s romantic vision of America as hero-nation. ‘‘He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals resources we need for education and health care here at home.’’ Implied by this critique of Bush’s ‘‘go-it-alone foreign policy’’ is a more temperate view of American Exceptionalism, which portrays America as a leader among peers rather than a nation of semi-omnipotence. The Democrats embedded that view within a narrative that emphasized leading by example and sharing power and responsibility with a more collective hero. Never before have we been more powerful militarily. But even the most powerful nation in the history of the world must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers. The President’s policies do not reflect thatyAs a nation, we must show our greatness, not just our strength. America must be a light to the world, not just a missile. (Pelosi & Daschle, 2004)

February 2005 Contrary to the progressive narrative projected in Bush’s Address in January, 2004 turned out to be significantly more costly for the United States in both financial and human terms than the two previous years combined. That year, the United States suffered 849 military casualties (GlobalSecurity.org), spent more money on the war (almost $80 billion), and saw the withdrawal of support from eight of the original coalition nations (Dreyfuss & Gilson, 2007). Nevertheless, although placing more emphasis on the contribution of other coalition nations, in the 2005 address Bush did not back down from the Romantic Narrative he had introduced 2 years earlier. He invoked visions of a brighter future even as he rejected the idea of an ‘‘artificial timetable’’ for withdrawal of American troops. ‘‘In the

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end, Iraqis must be able to defend their own country – and we will help that proud, new nation secure its liberty.’’ He also reminded listeners of the importance of America’s quest by peppering his speech with such phrases as ‘‘the force of human freedomythe ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world,’’ and the claim that ‘‘We are witnessing landmark events in the history of liberty.’’ However, following Democratic criticism of his ‘‘go it alone foreign policy,’’ and realizing that the nation and our allies were growing weary of a war that was not going as well as he had projected, the President talked at length about Iraq’s first democratic election, remarking: ‘‘We will succeed in Iraq because the Iraqi people value their own liberty – as they showed the world last Sunday.’’ Indeed, a hallmark of that speech was the President’s introduction of a new set of co-heroes into the narrative – the newly freed Iraqi people. ‘‘We will succeed in Iraq’’ he stated, ‘‘because Iraqis are determined to fight for their own freedom, and to write their own historyyWe are standing for the freedom of our Iraqi friends, and freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come.’’ He concluded with a textbook expression of American Exceptionalism. Quoting Franklin Roosevelt, ‘‘Each age is a dream that is dying or one that is coming to birth,’’ Bush added: And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are bornyOur generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable – yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom. (Bush, 2005)

The Democratic rebuttal, delivered by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi followed the same blueprint as the two previous years – direct criticism of the President’s domestic policies and his mismanagement of an ever-expanding national debt. Pelosi’s speech also capitalized on the weakening support, both at home and abroad, for the continuing occupation of Iraq. ‘‘We all know that the United States cannot stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to be viewed as an occupying force.’’ That comment hinted at something that the President’s speech had not acknowledged: the growing resentment for the United States, not only in the Arab world, but also among our allies. Indirectly recognizing that resentment, the Democratic rebuttal, for the first time, suggested the possibility of a tragic ending to Bush’s great romantic quest. ‘‘Despite the best efforts of our troops and their Iraqi counterparts, Iraq still faces a violent and persistent insurgency, and the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council said in January that Iraq is now a magnet for international terrorists.’’ She then briefly stated a Democratic plan for avoiding such a tragedy, which represented a critique of Bush’s management

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of the Iraq reconstruction effort and his go-it-alone policy which she had criticized the year before: First, responsibility for Iraqi security must be transferred to the Iraqis as soon as possible. This action is long overdueySecond, Iraq’s economic development must be accelerated. Congress has provided billions of dollars for reconstruction, but little of that money has been spent to put Iraqis to work rebuilding their countryyThird, regional diplomacy must be intensified. Diplomacy can lessen the political problems in Iraq, take pressure off of our troops, and deprive the insurgency of the fuel of anti-Americanism on which it thrives. (Reid & Pelosi, 2005)

By following a Democratic plan of action, which Pelosi outlined, America could avoid the tragic course Bush had followed: ‘‘If these three steps are taken, the next elections in Iraq, scheduled for December, can be held in a more secure atmosphere, with broader participation, and a much smaller American presence.’’

January 2006 By the end of 2005, the American death toll in Iraq had reached over 2,000 (GlobalSecurity.org, 2008); the American-lead coalition had shrunk considerably; even certain high-profile supportive pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and William F. Buckley, Jr., had begun to criticize Bush’s handling of the war; and a growing chorus of opposition to America’s continuing presence in Iraq was being heard both at home and throughout the Western world. True to his self-styled image as leader of a great romantic quest, however, Bush took the offensive in his 2006 address. Early in his speech, he reacted to Democratic criticisms by suggesting, with reference to the upcoming mid-term elections: ‘‘In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country. We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom – or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life.’’ He also used the speech to articulate a more long-term future narrative for America’s quest in the Middle East. Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal – we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on ity Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our timeyOur own generation is in a long war against a determined enemy – a war that will be fought by Presidents of both partiesy

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But selling such an expansive vision would require the recognition of the evil against which, of necessity, a great romantic quest must be directed. Thus, he spoke again of terrorists who seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder. Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world.

He reminded his listeners that ‘‘our work in Iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal. But that brutality has not stopped the dramatic progress of a new democracy.’’ Again taking the offensive against his critics, while invoking the image of America as hero-nation, and even resurrecting the deeds of the Republican’s hero-president Ronald Reagan, Bush proudly stated: ‘‘America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. We are the nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire.’’ Finally, the president contrasted his romantic and increasingly epic quest with Democratic calls for a concrete withdrawal plan, which he equated with a formula for tragedy. ‘‘A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country, and show that a pledge from America means little.’’ Despite the President’s romantic hyperbole, it had become increasingly difficult to sell a positive retrospective narrative of the war to an increasingly skeptical audience. Thus, it is noteworthy that, to a greater extent than his earlier addresses, the 2005 speech called upon an extensive set of concurrent sub-narratives of success. We’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government – with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedomyWe remain on the offensive in Afghanistan, where a fine President and a National Assembly are fighting terror while building the institutions of a new democracy. We’re on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we’re helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized. Second, we’re continuing reconstruction efforts, and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom. And, third, we’re striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy. Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom. (Bush, 2006)

These concurrent success narratives implied that, despite appearances to the contrary, the policies that had thus far guided his quest were succeeding.

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Under the circumstances, the President’s impassioned address was impressive. Yet the fact remained that America was mired in a war it might not be capable of winning – a fact that was increasingly being acknowledged even by Bush supporters. Moreover, a recently released ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that the President’s approval rating was hovering under 40% (Ipsos Public Affairs, 2007). Thus, the occasion of the Democratic critique seemed to provide an opportunity for a strong and thorough rebuke of the President’s policy on Iraq. Perhaps fearful of being labeled unpatriotic in an election year, however, the Democratic response was virtually silent on the topic of Iraq. Virginia Governor Jim Kaine’s address contained no rebuke of the President’s continued linking of Iraq to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, no mention of over 2,000 dead American soldiers (GlobalSecurity.org), no mention of the rapidly dwindling support for the war among our allies, no mention of the growing insurgency that was taking a toll on American military morale, and no coherent alternative narrative of America’s future in Iraq. The sum total of Kaine’s comments on Iraq follows. Our commitment to winning the war on terror compels us to ask this question: Are the president’s policies the best way to win this war? We now know that the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq. We now know that our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence. We now know the administration wants to cut tens of thousands of troops from the Army Reserves and the National Guard at the very time that we’re facing new and dangerous threats. And we now know that the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans’ benefits. There’s a better way. Working together, we have to give our troops the tools they need to win the war on terror. And we can do it without sacrificing the liberty that we’ve sent our troops abroad to defend. Our support has to begin here at home. That’s why we in Virginia—Democrats and Republicans—have reformed and enhanced our Department of Veterans Services to help our veterans and their family members access the federal benefits that they’ve earned. And we’re working to provide state re-enlistment bonuses to honor those Virginians who stay in service to commonwealth and country. (Kaine, 2006)

January 2007 Bush’s (2007) SUA came at the nadir of his presidency. By the end of 2006, insurgent and militia attacks, major bombings, and sectarian violence in Iraq had reached all-time highs, and the U.S. military death toll had reached 3,000 (GlobalSecurity.org). Meanwhile, the President’s approval rating had dropped to under 30% (Ipsos Public Affairs, 2007) and the Democrats held a majority of seats in both Houses of Congress. A common element in

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Tragic Narratives is the downfall of the hero, often brought about by hubris, which leads the hero into a state of self-deception about his power to determine the outcome of events. Such self-deception gradually isolates the hero from the society he seeks to serve (Frye, 1971). By early 2007, not only had the president become isolated from many of his earlier supporters, the nation as a whole had become increasingly isolated from traditional allies, and references to American arrogance – which had been a common theme in Fundamentalist Islamic and Middle Eastern criticism – were increasingly being heard from more sympathetic critics in Europe and elsewhere. Moreover, it had become difficult for Bush to claim progress or deny the losses that had been sustained during the previous year. Speaking from this rather precarious position, the president for the first time seemed to acknowledge that America’s great romantic quest could end in tragedy. This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we’re in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and wonyYet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle.

The clear implication of that statement was that America was not shaping the outcome. Indeed, for the first time since the invasion, Bush’s comments were focused more on marshaling support to avoid a tragic ending than to ensure a triumphant one. Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reachingyA contagion of violence could spill out across the country – and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is the greatest ally – their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America. To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and invite tragedy.

By marking these tragic contingencies, Bush suggested that realizing the desired outcome to his prospective Romantic Narrative obligated the American people to continue to support his policies in Iraq (cf. Margolin, 1999). Finally, as he had done in the past, he emphasized the epic proportion of America’s quest by reminding his audience: ‘‘The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others’’ (Bush, 2007). Emboldened by their historic election victories and feeling the power of the majority party for the first time in the Bush presidency, the Democrats’

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response was a stark contrast to the careful almost timid critique of his 2006 Address. In rebutting the president’s speech, Freshman Senator Jim Webb of Virginia declared: The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

Whereas, some of the President’s Addresses in the early years of the war were laced with elements of a progressive narrative, for the first time the Democrats’ critique contained elements of a regressive narrative. ‘‘The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering: Financially; the damage to our reputation around the world; the lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism; and especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.’’ Moreover, in drawing on the example of Korea, he suggested that the war could well end without the heroic victory Bush had longed for. As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. ‘‘When comes the end?’’ asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end. (Webb, 2007)

January 2008 On January 28, 2008, George W. Bush was into the final year of his presidency and that night made his final official SUA. It is not an understatement to say that the Iraq war has to a large extent defined Bush’s presidency. A year earlier, the situation in Iraq looked grim, and the president had not been able to deny the possibility that his great romantic quest to ‘‘lead the cause of freedom’’ (Bush, 2004) in the Middle East would end in tragedy. Moreover, it was clear that he would not be able to leave office the exalted romantic hero he had perhaps envisioned. Nevertheless, he devoted the heart of his address that night to reclaiming the right to the romantic narrative he had spun for the past 6 years. He did so by once again conflating the war on terror with the occupation of Iraq, while simultaneously reminding his listeners of the epic and moral nature of America’s quest.

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We are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the 21st century. The terrorists oppose every principle of humanity and decency that we hold dearyThe mission in Iraq has been difficult and trying for our nation. But it is in the vital interest of the United States that we succeed. A free Iraq will deny al Qaeda a safe haven. A free Iraq will show millions across the Middle East that a future of liberty is possible.

Recall that one of the key elements of the classic romantic quest is the critical battle. It is in such a battle that the besieged hero draws upon all his strength and courage and manages to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Such a battle would be necessary if Bush were to leave office with any sense of closure to his great quest. Thus, the American troop surge of 2007 was painted as the beginning of the critical battle of the narrative. One year ago, our enemies were succeeding in their efforts to plunge Iraq into chaos. So we reviewed our strategy and changed course. We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. We gave our troops a new mission: Work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in its strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country.

The surge, Bush contended had succeeded in turning the war in our favor and emboldening our co-heroes, the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people quickly realized that something dramatic had happened. Those who had worried that America was preparing to abandon them instead saw tens of thousands of American forces flowing into their country. They saw our forces moving into neighborhoods, clearing out the terrorists, and staying behind to ensure the enemy did not returnyThe Iraqis launched a surge of their own. In the fall of 2006, Sunni tribal leaders grew tired of al Qaeda’s brutality and started a popular uprising called ‘the Anbar Awakening.’ Over the past year, similar movements have spread across the country. And today, the grassroots surge includes more than 80,000 Iraqi citizens who are fighting the terrorists.

Although it was clearly premature for the president to claim that victory was at hand, in his last SUA he did declare that the quest was on an upward trajectory. While the enemy is still dangerous and more work remains, the American and Iraqi surges have achieved results few of us could have imagined just one year ago. When we met last year, many said that containing the violence was impossible. A year later, high profile terrorist attacks are down, civilian deaths are down, sectarian killings are downyWe will not rest until this enemy has been defeated. We must do the difficult work today, so that years from now people will look back and say that this generation rose to the moment, prevailed in a tough fight, and left behind a more hopeful region and a safer America. (Bush, 2008)

President Bush’s insistence on a romantic narrative of Iraq notwithstanding, the fact was that 2007 had been the costliest of the war. The United

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States was spending nearly $2 billion a week in Iraq (Dreyfuss & Gilson, 2007) and depriving the government of funds to support needed social programs; the original coalition had all but evaporated, with the United Kingdom as the only significant contributor still onboard; America had suffered almost 4,000 (GlobalSecurity.org) military casualties; and many soldiers were returning home injured, maimed, and traumatized. However, now the majority party, Democrats were also beginning to hear criticism of their own ineffectiveness in addressing some of the country’s many domestic problems. Their rhetorical strategy that night was to largely ignore the war – perhaps because of their own problems, or perhaps because things appeared to have taken a turn for the better in Iraq. Whatever their reasons, the word Iraq appeared only once in the response, delivered by Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas. Here in the heartland, we honor and respect military service. We appreciate the enormous sacrifices made by soldiers and their familiesyOver the past five years, I have seen thousands of soldiers deployed from Kansas. I’ve visited our troops in Iraq, attended funerals and comforted families, and seen the impact at home of the war being waged.

Although the speech was generally critical of the president, it included only one direct criticism of his Iraq policy: The last five years have cost us dearly; in lives lost; in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same; in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere. America’s foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies.

Indeed, the response contained very little in the way of a coherent prospective narrative of Iraq. Instead, what the Democrats offered that night was a brief image of a better future predicated on American’s putting aside their political differences and working together to solve the nation’s problems. We are Americans sharing a belief in something greater than ourselves, a nation coming together to meet challenges and find solutions; to share sacrifices and share prosperity; and focus, once again, not only on the individual good but on the common good. (Sebelius, 2008)

CONCLUSIONS The public discourse between the Bush Administration and leading Democrats on the question of Iraq was conducted on an almost continual basis during the period covered by this research. Speeches and comments on

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the topic were made by various spokespersons of the two sides almost daily. Thus, the twelve addresses discussed in this chapter are but a small sampling of the available data. However, in addition to being the most extensively orchestrated and widely witnessed of such speeches, the SUAs and the formal Democratic rebuttals represent a unique opportunity to study, in the public political arena, the kind of comment-response sequences commonly found in everyday spoken discourse. Central to the assessment of discourse as narrative conflict is the analysis of competing images of the future offered by the two sides. This research demonstrates quite clearly the incompatibility of those images as articulated by the antagonists in this debate. Also central to the narrative conflict model is the occasional revision of expectations and action strategies as the interaction unfolds. However, in politics where any action is subject to public scrutiny, the assumption is that danger lies in significant deviations from the group’s central message or master narrative. Thus, as we saw, the president labored mightily to salvage his romantic quest narrative, even when events seriously contradicted that view. Likewise, although frequently well positioned to rebut Bush’s narrative, more often than not the Democrats attempted to re-track the discourse (Young, 1997) from a focus on Bush’s quest to a focus on their own domestic narrative. Indeed, the Democrats appeared to have intentionally limited their engagement in a discourse for which they had no politically safe counter narrative, perhaps realizing that the ideology of American Exceptionalism does not readily tolerate suggestions of American failure. The power of narrative practice is that it ‘‘does not simply unfold within the interpretive boundaries of going concerns, but contributes to the definition of those boundaries in its own right’’ (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000, p. 107). Thus, the Democrats’ strategy of selectively critiquing those elements of the president’s Iraq policy that were producing negative domestic outcomes, rather than directly contradicting the basic assumptions of his quest narrative, was evidence of the power of the Executive Branch to control public discourse by defining its boundaries (Lakoff, 2002, 2004). Several presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have used that power to frame various military actions as war, even without a formal Congressional declaration of war. Indeed, although the United States has sent troops into battle in a number of conflicts, Congress has not formally declared war since World War II. Likewise, Public Law 107–243, passed by Congress in October 2002 (C-Span.org, 2002) authorizing the use of military force against Iraq, fell short of the formal declaration of war the president desired. Nevertheless, he considered it sufficient validation to thereafter refer to the

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‘‘war in Iraq,’’ and, somewhat surprisingly, did so without Democratic challenge. Additional examples of the power of the executive to control discourse are found in the president’s success at framing the invasion of Iraq as a necessary part of the war on terror, with no verified evidence linking Saddam Hussein to any terrorist attacks on the United States, and his ability to at least partially shift the justification of the invasion from the war on terror to the spread of democracy/capitalism (Hartnett & Stengrim, 2006, p. 120) throughout the Middle East. Although the framing of political discourse occurs in a variety of public settings, President Bush’s use of the SUAs to accomplish this task vis-a`-vis Iraq was noteworthy. Part of that success was the result of his persistence in linking his definitions of the conflict with key elements of the American Story, specifically the doctrine of American Exceptionalism and the implicit corollary of American obligation to support the struggle for individual freedoms both at home and around the globe. Such statements as, ‘‘The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable – yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom’’ (Bush, 2006), conjoined both of those core American beliefs into a singularly resonant call for his American audience to support his quest. Moreover, contradicting such sovereign ideas would invite charges of being un-American. Thus, rather than directly confronting such powerful rhetoric the Democrats crafted their responses around another core element of the American Dream – the principle of equality of opportunity. Frequently citing Bush’s policies as an impediment to the efforts of many Americans to share in the American Dream, they called for ‘‘an ‘opportunity society’ that allows all Americans to succeed’’ (Pelosi & Daschle, 2004) and what Harry Reid called a ‘‘Marshall Plan for America,’’ (Reid & Pelosi, 2005), but rarely did they explicitly link the economic problems facing American families to the skyrocketing cost of a continuing presence in Iraq. In the wake of Bush’s successful framing of the Iraq invasion and occupation as the realization of another chapter in the American Story, the Democrats declined to directly and forcefully rebut his war rhetoric. What they offered instead was a domestically centered Romantic Narrative that portrayed the Democrats as leaders of a heroic struggle for equal opportunity for all Americans and economic recovery for the nation as a whole. Although the Democratic rebutters were surprisingly infrequent in their direct criticism of the war, their responses did occasionally depict Bush as a quixotic figure whose fool’s errand was leading the country down the road to diplomatic and economic disaster. More forcefully, they depicted the president and his fellow Republicans as guardians of the rich and powerful and antagonists to middle and working class Americans. In their

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story it was the Democrats who would protect the American people from the reckless actions of Bush and his Republican cronies. Nevertheless, the Democratic rebuttals sketched a relatively dispasionate and familiar domestic narrative, whereas Bush’s portrayal of America’s adventure in Iraq as a classic romantic quest was textbook. Virtually all the elements were there: the unambiguous line between good and evil, the struggle between the messianic hero and the villainous antagonist (variously played by Saddam Hussein, Islamic Fundamentalists, and ‘‘the terrorists’’), the perilous journey, and the critical battle. Unfolding over a 6-year period through speeches that employed occasional retrospective narratives to recontextualize current events and concurrent narratives to support prospective actions, the story was told persistently and true to form, whether the facts at any given moment supported it or not. Significantly, however, the one classic element Bush might never be able to claim for his story is that which fundamentally marks the difference between romance and tragedy – the final victory and ultimate exaltation of the hero. Hartnett and Mercieca (2007) argue that we have entered an age of a ‘‘post-rhetorical presidency,’’ led by a president who seeks to control political discourse not ‘‘through the traditional means of eloquence, logic, pathos, or narrative storytelling, but by marshaling ubiquitous public chatter, waves of disinformation, and cascades of confusion-causing misdirection’’ (p. 600). It is clear that George W. Bush’s oratorical skills are anything but eloquent, and there is ample evidence of his affinity for misdirection and disinformation. However, my reading of his SUAs suggests that his narrative storytelling skills are far from post-rhetorical, at least in the literal sense. Rather, his romantic Iraq narrative is replete with examples of a nuanced understanding of a new form of rhetoric built upon cultural frames, metaphors, images, symbols, and values rather than non-emotional, value-neutral, and fact-based logical reasoning (Lakoff, 2008). Bush framed (1) the occupation of Iraq as a ‘‘war,’’ (2) a major escalation of that occupation as a ‘‘surge,’’ and (3) a devastating reduction of funding for domestic social programs to finance it as ‘‘supporting the troops’’ (Lakoff, 2008, p. 46), and the success of those framings is evinced by the non-critical adoption of those same terms by the media, the public and the Democrats themselves. Moreover, the romantic warrior-hero imagery of Bush’s narrative is a stark contrast to the less compelling nurturer-heroin imagery (Cowden, LaFever, & Viders, 2000) of the Democrats’ narratives of international cooperation and collective heroism vis-a`-vis Iraq and national unity and government assistance vis-a`-vis domestic issues. The relative success of Bush’s Iraq rhetoric suggests that such symbolic contrivances and

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linguistic framings are not post rhetorical but rather are integral components of a neo-rhetorical world in which the Bush presidency was firmly rooted. And, in such a world, those who do not understand the complex nature and manifold importance of the linguistic devices and symbolic representations through which contemporary public opinion is molded, quite simply, will not be heard.

REFERENCES Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Barthes, R. (1980). Introduction to the structural analysis of narratives. In: S. Santag (Ed.), A Barthes reader (pp. 251–295). New York: Hill and Wang. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bush, G. W. (2003). Bush’s State of the Union speech. Available at http://www.cnn.com/2003/ ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/ Bush, G. W. (2004). Transcript of the State of the Union. Available at http://www.cnn.com/ 2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/sotu.transcript.1/index.html Bush, G. W. (2005). Transcript of the State of the Union. Available at http://www.cnn.com/ 2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/sotu.transcript/ Bush, G. W. (2006). Text of Bush’s State of the Union speech. Available at http:// www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/31/sotu.transcript/ Bush, G. W. (2007). Bush: State of the Union is strong. Available at http://www.cnn.com/2007/ POLITICS/01/23/sotu.bush.transcript/index.html Bush, G. W. (2008). Transcript of State of the Union address. Available at http:// www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/ Campbell, K. K., & Jamieson, K. H. (1990). Deeds done in words: Presidential rhetoric and the genres of governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chang, G. C., & Mehan, H. B. (2007). Why we must attack Iraq: Bush’s reasoning practices and argumentation system. Discourse and Society, 19, 453–482. Cowden, T. D, LaFever, C. and Viders, S. (2000). The complete writer’s guide to heroes and heroines: Sixteen master archetypes. Hollywood, CA: Lone Eagle. C-Span.org. (2002). Public Law 107–243 – October 16, 2002, Authorization for use of military force against Iraq resolution of 2002. Available at http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/ hjres114.pdf Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, California: Sage. Dreyfuss, R., & Gilson, D. (2007). Sunni, Shiite?yanyone? anyone? Mother Jones, 32(2), 57–65. Franzosi, R. (1998). Narrative analysis – or why (and how) sociologists should be interested in narrative. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 517–554. Frye, N. (1971). Anatomy of criticism. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Gergen, K. J., & Gergen, MG. (1988). Narrative and the self as relationship. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 17–56. GlobalSecurity.org. (2008). U.S. casualties in Iraq. Available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/ military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm Goffman, I. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Anchor.

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Goffman, I. (1967). Interaction ritual. Garden City, NY: Anchor. Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (1998). Narrative practice and the coherence of personal stories. The Sociological Quarterly, 39, 163–187. Hartnett, S. J., & Mercieca, J. R. (2007). ‘‘A discovered dissembler can achieve nothing great’’; or, four theses on the death of presidential rhetoric in an age of empire. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 37, 599–621. Hartnett, S. J., & Stengrim, L. A. (2006). Globalization and empire: The U.S. invasion of Iraq, free markets, and the twilight of democracy. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press. Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2000). The self we live by. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ipsos Public Affairs. (2007). Associated Press-Ipsos poll, September 10–12. Available at http:// www.pollingreport.com/iraq2.htm. Kaine, T. (2006). Transcript of the democrats’ response. Available at http://www.cnn.com/ 2006/POLITICS/01/31/Dems.transcript/index.html. Lakoff, G. (2002). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think of an elephant: Know your values and frame the debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. Lakoff, G. (2008). The political mind: Why you can’t understand 21st-century American politics with an 18th-century brain. New York: Viking. Lock, G. (2003). Democrats’ response to the State of the Union message. Available at http:// www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/dems.transcript/ Maines, D. R. (1993). Narrative’s moment and sociology’s phenomena: Toward a narrative sociology. The Sociological Quarterly, 34, 17–38. Margolin, U. (1999). Of what is past, is passing, or to come: Temporality, aspectuality, modality, and the nature of literary narrative. In: D. Herman (Ed.), Narratologies: New perspectives on narrative analysis (pp. 142–166). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. McGuire, M. (1990). The rhetoric of narrative: A hermeneutic critical theory. In: B. K. Britton & A. D. Pellegrini (Eds), Narrative thought and narrative language (pp. 219–236). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Pelosi, N., & Daschle, T. (2004). Response from Pelosi, Daschele. Available at http:// www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/dems.transcript/index.html Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behavior. London: Sage. Reid, H., & Pelosi, N. (2005). Transcript of democratic response to State of the Union address. Available at http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/dem.transcript/index.html Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation. London: Blackwell. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sebelius, K. (2008). Full text of Democratic response to State of the Union. Available at http:// www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-01/2008-01-29-voa8.cfm?CFID ¼ 38844013& CFTOKEN ¼ 19675821. Shogan, C. J. (2006). The moral rhetoric of American presidents. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press. Stubbs, M. (1983). Discourse analysis: The sociolinguistic analysis of natural language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Tannen, D. (1989). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Webb, J. (2007). Transcript: Webb says Bush took U.S. to war ‘recklessly’ Available at http:// www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/23/sotu.webb.transcript/index.html White, H. (1978). Tropics of discourse. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. White, J. K. (1997). The storyteller in chief: Why presidents like to tell stories. In: S. F. Schram & P. T. Neisser (Eds), Tales of the state: Narrative in contemporary U.S. politics and public policy (pp. 53–62). Lanham Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Young, R. L. (1997). Account sequences. Symbolic Interaction, 20, 291–305. Young, R. L. (2007). Expectancy narratives and interactional contingencies. Symbolic Interaction, 30, 585–607.

FOUR ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL PARADOXES: REFLECTIONS ON THE WORK OF KENNETH LIBERMAN Scott R. Harris ABSTRACT This chapter summarizes and explicates the work of Kenneth Liberman, an exemplary but underappreciated practitioner of ethnomethodology for the past 30 years. Four paradoxes or tensions organize the discussion. First, Liberman is highly confident that confidence is almost always unwarranted. Second, Liberman is extremely skeptical yet respectful of ordinary knowledge and practices. Third, Liberman insists that meaning is not inherent even while he tries to faithfully study and represent reality. Fourth, Liberman attempts to do work that benefits various individuals and groups, but he believes that the self is illusory and that social problems are interpretations. These four themes are common (but not universal) in ethnomethodological scholarship. Consequently, Liberman’s work can be used as an instructive point of entry into that form of inquiry.

For over 30 years, Kenneth Liberman has been a devout practitioner of Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, a voracious reader of phenomenology, a

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committed ethnographer who immerses himself in the languages and practices of distant peoples, and a mentor to a diverse array of undergraduate and graduate students. He has published three books and dozens of articles, but his work has not been as widely appreciated or appropriated as it could be. In this chapter, I will attempt to summarize and elucidate Liberman’s work by highlighting four recurring paradoxes or tensions within it. These themes are common (but not universal) in ethnomethodologically informed scholarship. Consequently, my hope is that more instructors and researchers may be inclined to view Liberman’s work as an edifying point of entry into this broad tradition of inquiry.

A CONFIDENT INSISTENCE ON HUMILITY Perhaps the central theme in Liberman’s work (and an idea that is readily inferable from much ethnomethodological research) is the importance of humility. In many of his publications, Liberman (1989, 1995, 1999a, 2001, 2007) warns repeatedly against confidence. He believes there is almost no warrant for the kind of certainty that comes from settling on a comfortable or secure thought. Liberman argues that most people – laypersons and social scientists – tend to under-appreciate the contingent bases of their knowledge. Most people prefer to think that the world is as they see it. They seek out others willing to corroborate a shared sense of reality, and with that social confirmation their sense of assuredness grows. But as most academics know in theory – but as ethnomethodologists arguably understand in greater detail – there are usually many reasons to doubt the knowledge produced in any given situation. For instance, our experiences with our surroundings are all mediated by layers of interpretation and the contingencies of occasioned interaction. We use culturally inherited categories to guide our observations; our ad hoc goals and evolving perspectives shape the way we collect disparate instances into ‘‘patterns’’ and how we treat ‘‘exceptions to the rule.’’ Moreover, our conversational practices and our desire for social acceptance can lead discussions and inquiries down narrow and constricting paths. To me, it is telling that one of Liberman’s earliest articles focuses on ‘‘gratuitous concurrence’’ – that is, the act of agreeing to something that one has not comprehended (Liberman, 1980). One lesson that can be taken from this article is this: we should not be overly confident in part because we cannot be certain that others who appear to agree with us have even understood what we meant to say. Individuals and groups have practical

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agendas that shape the earnestness with which they evaluate claims. Often an overarching goal is to have a pleasant conversation, in which case we will agree with anything remotely plausible, regardless of whether we (subvocally) entertain doubts. In situations involving intercultural communication, where at least one participant is speaking an unfamiliar language, gratuitous concurrence aids in maintaining trust and goodwill as speakers and listeners struggle to comprehend each other (Liberman, 1980, 1995). In interactions with those who have power or authority over us, gratuitous concurrence can be an effective (though somewhat accommodating) survival strategy (Liberman, 1985). Whatever the occasion, Liberman suggests the desire to avoid appearing ‘‘disagreeable’’ can lead to facile and superficial agreement. In the interest of keeping an interaction from falling apart, participants may ‘‘let pass’’ ambiguities and feign comprehension. After reading Liberman’s work, I have personally found it very humorous to observe people nodding in agreement and saying ‘‘Yes!’’ or ‘‘Mmm hmm!’’ even before their conversational partners have finished formulating a coherent thought. Liberman argues that, strictly speaking, it is a conceit or a lie to say ‘‘I understand.’’ Even in situations where there is a determined effort to grasp another’s comments, Liberman believes that ‘‘Complete understanding is never possible, for further significance is always possible’’ (1995, p. 123). There is an implicit etcetera inhabiting every sentence we speak or write, portending unexplored horizons of meanings that could be explored if we decided to ‘‘go there’’ (Liberman, 1999c). Understanding is something achieved and demonstrated in ways that are ‘‘good enough’’ for the practical purposes at hand. For example, two or more people may agree that a meeting was ‘‘contentious’’ or that a concert was ‘‘fun,’’ but such loose and flexible descriptions only bring into play a swarm of implications that may be selectively explored but never fully exhausted. There is seldom time or interest (let alone capability) for tracking them all down. One cannot dwell on every difficulty and there is a tendency to accept a collaborator’s wish to move along with the discussion. That is, local interactional concerns and obligations can and usually do overshadow the semantic issues. (Liberman, 1995, p. 139; italics altered)

Liberman’s call for humility entails more than laypersons and academics are accustomed to giving. It is true that laypersons may sometimes add an ‘‘in my opinion’’ or ‘‘but I could be wrong’’ to their assertions. Social scientists, in turn, are often skeptical of both commonsense and scholarly knowledge, and they marshal impressive bodies of evidence to counter

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previous claims about the existence, extent, and causes of social problems and conditions. Moreover, researchers do engage in methodological selfconfessions. Nevertheless, Liberman (2007, p. 111) thinks that most scholars are virtually entombed within their own preconceptions. Their favorite theories, concepts, and methods often lead them around by their noses; at best they notice and re-arrange the furniture within their existing conceptual structures.1 A radical self-understanding of one’s thematizing practices is generally not pursued. Following Husserl, Liberman calls for a ‘‘transcendental criticism’’ of reason rather than an ‘‘analytic criticism.’’ This is a radical criticism that ‘‘continually exposes and critiques the practices of understanding that are being employed’’ (Liberman, 2007, p. 12). Such criticism proceeds from the premise that the meaning of any given theory or idea, as well as each and every piece of data, is socially constructed. It can be challenging to promote the importance of humility when confronted with students who believe it foolhardy to question the obvious existence of ‘‘chairs,’’ ‘‘rocks,’’ ‘‘individuals,’’ ‘‘nations,’’ and so on. Moreover, colleagues often strongly believe that some of their theories and facts have been thoroughly validated by careful research, peer review, subsequent replications, copious citations by likeminded scholars, and honorable awards. Such certitude can seldom be shaken by meek or gentle questioning. Consequently, I have seen Liberman (in person and in his writing) adopt a rather a self-assured (if not bombastic) tone when insisting that others should examine the social basis of their confidence. However, Liberman’s insistence on humility has always been more practical than nihilistic. It is followed by subsequent arguments about the importance of being cautious in one’s commitments, vigilant in one’s thinking, and sensitive to and inquisitive about the perspectives and experiences of others (Liberman, 2007, p. 102). The first tension or paradox in Liberman’s work can thus be summarized in this way: Liberman is very confident that confidence is virtually always unwarranted. He seems quite certain that certainty is based on illusions.

SKEPTICISM YET RESPECT FOR ORDINARY KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES As I have indicated, Liberman has frequently displayed an extreme skepticism for what passes as knowledge in academia and throughout social life. This skepticism does not pertain merely to our understanding of

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others and the world around us but to knowledge of ourselves as ‘‘individuals.’’ Self-certainty, in the double sense of confident knowledge about the world and about oneself, is a virtual fantasy (Liberman, 1989). In his teaching and writing, he has likened many (but not all) human beings to ‘‘hungry ghosts’’ who continually require confirmation of their identities from their companions (cf. Liberman, 2001, p. 100). Even the powerful derive their sense of self from ‘‘others,’’ and are thus dependent on their supposed inferiors for more than just labor and resources (Liberman, 1999b). Liberman has continually used cross-cultural data to challenge Western assumptions about the naturalness and universality of popular beliefs and practices, especially the ego (Liberman, 1985, 2007). Yet despite his extreme skepticism for virtually all things taken for granted, Liberman is not dismissive of ordinary ways of doing and knowing. As ethnomethodologists tend to do, Liberman treats mundane understandings and actions as not only significant but paramount. What conventional sociologists might consider too routine or trivial to notice—namely, the specific activities of daily association – Liberman subjects to careful analysis?2 For example, in his research on Australian Aboriginals, Liberman carefully documented the interactional procedures that produced, and were a consequence of, Aboriginals’ highly congenial and consensual relations. What previous scholars had described in generalities, Liberman sought to document in and as daily concerted behaviors. He described Aboriginals’ use of ‘‘facilitators,’’ including frequent confirmations (‘‘Mm hmm,’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ ‘‘That’s it,’’ ‘‘Good,’’ and ‘‘Wonderful’’), repetitions (‘‘He’s speaking of money there,’’ ‘‘Yes, he’s speaking of money there’’), and reversals (‘‘Three children,’’ ‘‘Children three’’) (see Liberman, 1985, Chapter 2). To a lesser degree, some of these conversational practices can be found in Western cultures. However, according to Liberman, Australian Aboriginals offer a noticeably different system for organizing social relations, one that ‘‘decenters’’ the self. He argued that the participants to an Aboriginal assembly will collaborate in assessing and advancing the emerging consensus on an issue, but not as a negotiation of wills. Contrary to what a conversation analyst might expect, Aboriginals do not possess or take turns so much as they attempt to articulate and serve the developing collective sentiment. Liberman (1989, p. 133) described the process as similar to ‘‘an auction without an auctioneer.’’ Consider the following example, taken from the end of a meeting that was conducted mostly in the Aboriginal language: APa: Yes, that’s all. Finished. APb: Fine, we’ll get another one.

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APc: Yes. APd: Good. APa: That’s the meeting. Ape: [whispered] I agree with what he’s been saying, this old fellowy APf: Yes, so it will be like that. APg: Yes, that’s all. Finished. APh: Finished. APb: The meeting is over APg: Finished, once more. APb: So yes, that’s [the] lot. APa: That’s all, that’s [the] lot. APc: Yes, finished isn’t it? APd: All done. KL: Finished? APi: Yes. (Liberman, 1985, p. 64; italics altered)

Liberman (1985, p. 32) analyzed such interactions as ‘‘identifying’’ or ‘‘indicative’’ of Aboriginals’ way of being in the world. In general, Australian Aboriginals do not cherish individual identities. They are rarely competitive and seek to avoid personal recognition. They do not sign their paintings, name landmarks after themselves, or amass possessions. They do not look conversational partners directly in the eyes; their comments are almost ‘‘anonymous’’ and are addressed to the given gathering as a whole. Liberman devoted years to the meticulous study of Aboriginal interaction. He learned a new language, immersed himself in an unfamiliar culture, took field notes and transcribed recorded conversations, and (along the way) assisted Aboriginals in their dealings with government agencies. Liberman was of course highly skeptical of Aboriginal society – from their religious beliefs to the daily truths produced by their congenial discussions. However, he paid Aboriginals a high compliment by devoting considerable time and effort to describing faithfully their interactional practices (1985, Chapters 1–3). He examined the dilemmas that occurred when Aboriginals engaged with Westerners in earlier stages of colonialism (Chapters 4 and 5) as well as in recent educational, legal, and employment settings (Chapters 6–8). He referred to Aboriginals’ methods of speaking and relating as a ‘‘competent system’’ that, as ‘‘another variety of human social activity,’’ merited detailed scrutiny (Liberman, 1985, p. 115). With his research in Australia and throughout his career, Liberman (2007, p. 102) has attempted to emulate Garfinkel’s ‘‘tireless obsession for the continuous scrutiny of the natural orderliness of ordinary affairs.’’ That means that Liberman takes human activity both less and more seriously than members do. Members often treat their interpretations and practices as

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‘‘natural’’ or ‘‘automatic.’’ But, like fish in the water, they tend not to notice the intricate work involved in producing social order. Ethnomethodologists such as Liberman arguably give this work more attention and respect than both laypersons and other social scientists do. In my first section discussed some of Liberman’s analysis of the ad hoc nature of communication – using conversations beginning with ‘‘That was a contentious meeting’’ or ‘‘That was a fun concert’’ as examples. Liberman (1999c) believes that speakers and listeners do not have full command of such conversations. Their utterances are ambiguous and contain implicit meanings that could unfurl in a number of directions. Listeners often gratuitously concur and let confusions pass; speakers themselves may not know precisely what they are saying or why they are saying it, and may learn from their audiences’ reactions the meanings and purposes that their comments had ‘‘all along.’’ Communication is unavoidably unclear, yet participants not only proceed but also often use ambiguities to their advantage. It is amid this analysis that Liberman introduces a catchy phrase (italicized below) that nicely summarizes the paradox I have discussed in this section of my chapter: Interacting parties stumble into ‘‘the matter talked about’’ without having planned for it in advance, yet they quickly exploit its appearance to expand or contract communication as the situation demands. There is a genius in the idiocy, and it is this genius – embedded in and open to the temporally unfolding sense – that must be observed y (Liberman, 1985, p. 215; emphasis added)

People may not be as rational as they consider or portray themselves to be, but they are remarkably skilled at ‘‘making do’’ and keeping interaction going. Hence, because of this and similar reasons, Liberman pays much respect to those he studies even as he remains highly skeptical of the certainties they produce.

STUDYING THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUTH-MAKING Liberman is a sociologist but he holds a low opinion of most sociological scholarship. He is certainly familiar with and utilizes intellectual resources provided by Durkheim, Simmel, Peter Berger, and others, but readers would be hard pressed to find a single citation to any journal containing the words ‘‘Sociology’’ or ‘‘Sociological’’ in its title. Liberman views ethnomethodology as virtually the only research tradition in Sociology that seriously attempts to capture the ‘‘looks of the world’’ for participants, no matter how

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much that phrase may echo the slogans used by other qualitative and quantitative researchers (Liberman, 2007, pp. 97, 115). He especially disapproves of those who can collect data from their offices, perhaps by conducting a phone or mail survey or by downloading similarly generated statistics from the internet. Most common or conventional sociology today sifts through remnant husks of human actions in order to ‘‘explain’’ or predict social behavior by correlating one phenomenon with another. Such sociologists may not even witness any activities as they are lived and done, and what is worse, in most cases they never miss the fact that they never witnessed any. (Liberman, 2008, p. 254; italics altered)

Given constraints of time, resources, and motivation, some scholars refrain from conducting extensive empirical research after receiving tenure, opting to write textbooks and theoretical treatises. In contrast, Liberman only increased his dedication to his craft. By reducing his tenure to half-time and living modestly, he has enabled himself to continue to commit himself more fully to his research. After noticing some deep overlaps between the Buddhist notion of ‘‘emptiness’’ and ethnomethodological concern with reflexivity, he set about learning another language and spending more years of his life studying an unfamiliar culture, this time living among Tibetan monk-scholars taking refuge in India (Liberman, 2004). Like Australian Aboriginals, the Tibetans strive to be self-less and humble, but they do so as a (literally) self-conscious and philosophical pursuit (Liberman, 1989). And while Aboriginals assiduously avoid disagreements, the Tibetan philosophers are rigorous debaters who spend hours discussing the finer points of various schools of Buddhism. In the course of those debates, they use a number of strategies to undermine certainty and unsettle thinking – not only through logical tactics (e.g., pushing an argument to its extreme to demonstrate its absurdities) and conversational moves (e.g., saying loudly ‘‘Are you sure?’’ and ‘‘You are confused!’’), but also through ritualized embodied practices (e.g., standing above a seated counterpart and punctuating a question with a loud clap-ofthe-hands mere inches from his nose). With the Tibetans, Liberman found a way to study a group preoccupied with a central dilemma of ethnomethodology – the reflexivity of understanding. How do we come to know the truth, if our acts of understanding create that truth? What makes the Tibetan case a perspicacious one y is that Tibetan philosopher-monks are determined to avoid any reification of the concepts with which their thinking operates, and yet they recognize – and continually acknowledge – that such reification

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is inevitable, the very resource of their own formal analytic work. (Liberman, 2007, p. 11)

The question ‘‘How can ethnomethodologists study social reality if that reality is so malleable to the conceptualizations of inquiry?’’ is one that Liberman attempts to address while, ironically, studying a group of people who are oriented toward similar questions of their own as they interact on a daily basis. Liberman admits that ‘‘There is no realm of ‘pure,’ unmediated experience’’ (2007, p. 38). There can be no simple ‘‘capturing’’ of reality. However, he does hold that the truths that sociologists create – while never perfect – vary in their faithfulness and sensitivity to lived experience. The validity of social research is a matter of degree, and for Liberman the degrees can be quite large. As with other ethnomethodologists, Liberman’s goal has been ‘‘to come more directly into contact with the raw data of human experience and conduct by stripping away the innumerable theoretical and methodological barriers which imperceptibly interpose themselves between observers and the organizationally significant features of social activity’’ (Heritage, 1984, p. 311). Liberman attempts to demonstrate by example that some research strategies are more likely to produce findings that resonate with people’s lived experiences, even if there is ultimately no escaping the imposition of researcher-generated themes upon one’s data. Among these strategies are learning another group’s way of speaking, living among them for many months or years, suspending one’s preconceptions as much as possible, attempting to ‘‘do’’ the phenomena that group members are interested in, and closely analyzing audio/video recordings and transcripts of social interaction. Such efforts do not ensure access to an unmediated, unadulterated experience. They can, though, provide a greater ‘‘possibility for a connection with actual experience as the resource for the truth of what we can come to know’’ (Liberman, 2007, p. 35). Inevitably, Liberman engages in occasional objectivist claims-making.3 For instance, Liberman makes definitive pronouncements about whether authentic communication has actually occurred between two parties and about whether a debate tactic is mere sophistry or is productive of genuine understanding (e.g., Liberman, 2007, p. 162). He employs the passive voice when analyzing excerpts, as in ‘‘What is important to observe here is y’’ (Liberman, 2007, p. 143) where he could say ‘‘What I interpret as noteworthy y’’ or ‘‘I am using this excerpt to argue that y.’’ And, he occasionally writes as if his hard-won analytical insights were beyond

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contention. Consider his discussion of a succinct example of Aboriginal communication; I have selected a brief excerpt, so that Liberman can be quoted nearly in full: The single-worded summary [in the excerpt below] y presents an account which encapsulates the essence of KL’s utterance and orients the gathering to the topic: KL: These whitefellas look after the children. They assist the children. AP: Children. (Liberman, 1985, p. 58)

In one sentence, Liberman makes two claims about the meaning and usefulness of the word ‘‘children’’ as it appears in the course of this conversation – that is, that it ‘‘encapsulates the essence of KL’s utterance’’ and that it ‘‘orients the gathering to the topic.’’ Needless to say, AP’s brief contribution to the selected discourse could be thematized in a number of different ways, depending on the orientation and agenda of the person who was telling a story about it for some academic or lay audience (see Gubrium & Holstein, 2009). Liberman is well aware of such interpretive difficulties, and would likely admit that any of his analyses could be challenged for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, he would also contend that his research (and that by other rigorous ethnomethodologists) offers observations that are more valid than those produced by conventional sociologists. Thus, the paradox or tension highlighted in the third section of my chapter can be summarized in this manner: Liberman (2007, p. 89) believes that ‘‘The most fecund insights are to be gained y from the careful scrutiny of events’’ but he also admits that all insights are achieved via a process of interpretation.4 He eschews Truth writ large while maintaining that some truths are better than others.

IMPROVING ILLUSORY REALITIES: ASSISTING INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETAL PROGRESS Garfinkel (1967) clearly hoped ethnomethodologists would bring ‘‘news’’ to sociology by carefully describing ‘‘the concerted production of actual worldly events as they happen in real time’’ (Liberman, 2008, p. 254). Yet Garfinkel is largely silent on the ‘‘good’’ that might result from doing ethnomethodology. Who might benefit from ethnomethodological research? What purposes or whose interests might be served? To what larger ends might ethnomethodological work be applied? To my knowledge, Garfinkel

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has not addressed such questions in much detail. At the least, the moral value of ethnomethodology is not a central or explicit topic in his foundational text Studies in Ethnomethodology or in subsequent elaborations (Garfinkel, 1991, 2002; Garfinkel & Wieder, 1992). Moreover, the concept of ‘‘ethnomethodological indifference’’ (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970, p. 166) could be read (in part) as an admonition to avoid preoccupation with such concerns. Nevertheless, some scholars influenced by Garfinkel have attempted to conduct ethnomethodological work that is intended to speak directly to moral issues and to have some tangible positive benefits.5 Liberman is one such scholar, though his morality operates cautiously. Liberman is wary of commercialized or superficial forms of practicality that can guide research, such as choosing a project based on the availability of funding or the ease with which a study may be completed. Moreover, he recognizes that ethnomethodology does not lend itself to facile problem solving. Social ‘‘problems’’ themselves cannot be taken at face value but from the outset should be approached as putative situations that are perceived or claimed to be troubling. Given those caveats, Liberman does insist (or at least imply) that research should have some positive outcomes. Potential benefits can flow in three directions: toward researchers, their ‘‘subjects’’ (or participants), and their readers. First, Liberman (1999a, p. 51) suggests that research should be personally engaging and rewarding to the researcher. This is not necessarily a strictly self-centered consideration, but is related to the intellectual and ethical soundness of a project. The rigorous investigation of social life requires a serious investment of time and attention. A person’s commitment to his or her research should therefore not be faked or forced. For example, a project should not be pursued merely or primarily to obtain a degree or a grant; in such situations one’s scholarship can become ‘‘self-polluting’’ or ‘‘inauthentic’’ (Liberman, 1999a, p. 51). Liberman asserts that such an improper motivation could be damaging not only to researchers but also to their respondents and their fields: One must be compelled to the integrity of one’s own research. If one is not honest with respect to one’s own work, then how in the world can one be able to address the world of one’s subjects with any honesty? And for what reason would they want to commit part of their energies to you? (Liberman, 1999a, p. 51)

In contrast to those with careerist or pecuniary motives, Liberman seems genuinely engrossed by his research topics. He reports being deeply moved (even to tears) by what he sees and learns in the field (Liberman, 2001,

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p. 104). He tends to derive personal lessons and examples to follow from the groups he studies. Though his ethnomethodological perspective does not lend itself to the adoption of simplistic answers to important moral questions, it has enabled him to question illusions and challenge taken-forgranted truths. He thus finds that his research has been simultaneously ‘‘dizzying’’ and ‘‘liberating’’: To each domain of my social experience (for example, friendship, taking walks, personal hygiene, etc.) I [have] come to apply the customary perspectives of three cultures – Australian Aboriginal, Tibetan Buddhist, and my own Californian anticulture. A sort of triangulation occurs in which each perspective provides peculiar readings of the others, producing insights that extend my possibilities and free me from unnecessary constraints upon thought and practice. (Liberman, 2001, p. 101)

Second, Liberman argues explicitly (and demonstrates by example) that research should provide some advantage to those who are studied. It is a bureaucratic policy of institutional review boards that, to be approved, the benefits of a research project must outweigh its costs. What Liberman would add to the calculation is a thoroughgoing sensitivity to risk of cultural imperialism in the conceptualization and implementation of a research project, including any assessments of its potential ‘‘costs’’ and ‘‘benefits.’’ Here ethics and sociological rigor are linked because both require that researchers actively seek out and attempt to accommodate members’ perspectives and practices (Liberman, 1999a, p. 57). Methodological and ethical strategies should both allow subjects to ‘‘talk back’’ to the researcher. Consider Liberman’s discussion of some of the choices he has made regarding the ethical dilemma of repaying respondents for their time and effort: I feel duty-bound to provide some substantive benefit to the research subjects in exchange for tolerating my intrusion into their lives. What this ‘‘service’’ should be is not something the field researcher can decide for those being researched: It is for the people to settle on what it is they require from me y In some cases, it may be mere financial support y; on other occasions, it might be bureaucratic assistance y in the completion of letters to a government department. I have been asked to translate short English texts into Tibetan y [and have provided technical assistance to individuals who] received their first computer. (Liberman, 1999a, p. 59; italics in original)

A third type of research benefit that Liberman pursues centers on his readers and audiences. Liberman does not merely seek to bring others some ‘‘news’’ but to facilitate self-improvement and social reform. Through his teaching and writing, Liberman (1999a) hopes that at least some Westerners will benefit from learning about cultures that have developed less self-centered and consumerist ways of thinking and acting. He further argues that his phenomenological and ethnomethodological inquiries can provide some help

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in reducing racism and oppression (Liberman, 1985, 1999b). He also seeks to raise public awareness of moral ‘‘wrongs’’ (such as the exploitation of Aboriginals or the subjugation of Tibet) by presenting written and oral arguments to government agencies and newspapers (Liberman, 1999a, p. 60). The fourth paradox in Liberman’s work can thus be summarized this way: Liberman believes that nothing has inherent meaning, that ‘‘what is going on’’ with any given person or group is a moving phenomenon amenable to multiple interpretations. Yet he also acts as if his work can help improve those somewhat illusory realities. He thinks that careful ethnomethodological research can benefit researchers themselves, the individuals and groups they study, and their readers and audiences. He insists that ethnomethodology can help individuals and societies evolve or make progress, but he recognizes that ‘‘individuals,’’ ‘‘societies,’’ and ‘‘progress’’ are reifications (Liberman, 1985, pp. 115, 156, 2007, p. xiii).

CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have attempted to craft an appreciative summary of Liberman’s career to date by identifying four recurring paradoxes or tensions in his work. It is impossible for an article such as this to represent the full complexity and extent of Liberman’s work in particular or of ethnomethodology in general.6 Yet I hope the themes I have discussed are illustrative of at least some of the central concerns of this scholar and the tradition to which he has dedicated his life. Liberman’s commitment to his field is exemplary. Future generations of ethnomethodologists could follow Liberman’s lead in many respects, such as emulating his use of digital video to collect, analyze, and present data.7 However, in fidelity to Garfinkel’s teachings, Liberman would be wary of the facile adoption of any particular topics, concepts, or methods, including his own. Instead, he would encourage us to tailor our inquiries to the unique requirements of each social setting, and to discover anew what personal, political, and analytical insights can be learned from a rigorous and reflexive engagement with its members (see Liberman, 2007, Chapter 5). I would like to conclude by highlighting a fifth pattern which can be seen throughout Liberman’s research and in each section of this chapter – a dialectical motif. Liberman (2007, p. 180) provides a nice description of this motif when he writes that ‘‘Wavering between two sides to the same truth may be more y productive than settling for one side or the other.’’ Arguably, this final theme undergirds the four tendencies I identified in

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the body of this paper: tempering confidence with humility; balancing skepticism with respect; approaching truth as socially created without completely giving up on reality; and contributing to individual and societal progress without reifying problems or their solutions. For Liberman, being a serious scholar (and leading a moral life) means never become too contented in one’s thinking. One must continually ‘‘oscillate’’ between competing realities and discourses (Liberman, 2001, p. 101).

NOTES 1. As Liberman’s graduate student, I tried to demonstrate this point with respect to quantitative and qualitative research on marital equality. In both of those literatures, researchers’ definitions of equality tend to be imposed on the respondents they study (Harris, 2006, Chapters 2 and 3). 2. This proclivity can be seen in Liberman’s teaching as well. Like Garfinkel (1967), Liberman often required his students to write short papers about their observations of some social interaction – even in his course on Introduction to Sociology. 3. This is an enduring problem for phenomenologically and ethnomethodologically informed researchers. Many such scholars have attempted to bracket reality and refrain from making claims about the ontological status of things, but careful readers always seem able to detect realist assumptions and assertions in their texts (see Best, 2003; Holstein & Gubrium, 2008; Sanders, 2005; Woolgar & Pawluch, 1985). 4. Liberman (2008, p. 254) refers to the documentary method of interpretation (see Garfinkel, 1967, pp. 40, 78) as ‘‘inappropriate’’ yet ‘‘unavoidable’’ in ethnomethodological research. Elsewhere he writes that conceptualization inevitably accompanies observation ‘‘since it is impossible to entirely bracket our thoughts’’ (Liberman, 2007, p. 40). 5. For example, Hugh Mehan has for decades conducted ethnomethodologically inspired research in the hopes of reducing educational inequalities. 6. Maynard and Clayman (1991) argue that ethnomethodology has spawned a diverse range of subfields. 7. See the CD-ROM which accompanies Liberman’s (2004) book.

REFERENCES Best, J. (2003). But seriously folks: The limitations of the strict constructionist interpretation of social problems. In: J. A. Holstein & G. Miller (Eds), Challenges and choices: Constructionist perspectives on social problems (pp. 51–69). New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Garfinkel, H. (1991). Respecification: Evidence for locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, etc. in and as of the essential

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haecceity of immortal ordinary society, (I) – an announcement of studies. In: G. Button (Ed.), Ethnomethodology and the human sciences (pp. 10–19). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Garfinkel, H., & Sacks, H. (1970). On formal structures of practical actions. In: J. C. McKinney & E. A. Tiryakian (Eds), Theoretical sociology (pp. 338–366). New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Garfinkel, H., & Wieder, D. L. (1992). Two incommensurable, asymmetrically alternate technologies of social analysis. In: G. Watson & R. M. Seiler (Eds), Text in context: Contributions to ethnomethodology (pp. 175–206). Newbury Park, NJ: Sage. Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (2009). Analyzing Narrative Reality. Los Angeles: Sage. Harris, S. R. (2006). The meanings of marital equality. Albany, NY: SUNY. Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity. Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2008). Constructionist impulses in ethnographic fieldwork. In: J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds), Handbook of constructionist research (pp. 373–395). New York: Guilford. Liberman, K. (1980). Ambiguity and gratuitous concurrence in inter-cultural communication. Human Studies, 3, 65–85. Liberman, K. (1985). Understanding interaction in central Australia: An ethnomethodological study of Australian aboriginal people. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Liberman, K. (1989). Decentering the self: Two perspectives from philosophical anthropology. In: A. B. Dallery & C. E. Scott (Eds), The question of the other: Essays in contemporary continental philosophy (pp. 127–142). Albany: SUNY. Liberman, K. (1995). The natural history of some intercultural communication. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28, 117–146. Liberman, K. (1999a). From walkabout to meditation: Craft and ethics in field inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 5, 47–63. Liberman, K. (1999b). The dialectics of oppression: A phenomenological perspective. Philosophy Today, 43, 272–282. Liberman, K. (1999c). The social praxis of communicating meanings. Text, 19, 57–72. Liberman, K. (2001). Ethnographic practice and the critical spirit. In: D. Bromley & L. Carter (Eds), Toward reflexive ethnography (Vol. 9 of Religion and the social order, pp. 93–115), Greenwich, CT: JAI Press/Elsevier. Liberman, K. (2004). Dialectical practice in Tibetan philosophical culture: An ethnomethodological inquiry into formal reasoning. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Liberman, K. (2007). Husserl’s criticism of reason: With ethnomethodological specifications. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Liberman, K. (2008). Larry Wieder’s radical ethno-inquiries. Human Studies, 31, 251–257. Maynard, D. W., & Clayman, S. E. (1991). The diversity of ethnomethodology. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 385–418. Sanders, R. E. (2005). Validating observations in discourse studies: A methodological reason for attention to cognition. In: H. te Molder & J. Potter (Eds), Conversation and cognition (pp. 57–78). New York: Cambridge. Woolgar, S., & Pawluch, D. (1985). Ontological gerrymandering: The anatomy of social problems explanations. Social Problems, 32, 214–227.

LEAVING BLACK ROCK CITY John F. Sherry, Jr. ABSTRACT This account of a field experience is written in the form of a reverie, to match the conditions that gave rise to it. It emerges from my long-term study of the Burning Man festival, a massive countercultural communal celebration of aesthetic immediacy held annually in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Marked by the suspension of ordinary commerce in favor of a gift economy, the spectacle culminates in the torching of an enormous effigy. This experimental ethnography follows in the symbolic interactionist tradition of an earlier tale told by Andrea Fontana.1 ‘‘Urethral awakening dream.’’

That’s how a folklorist mentor once interpreted a tale for me. The phrase reverberated like a mantra in my head, crowding out whatever image had been playing as I swam to the surface of consciousness. I had tanked up on water just a few short hours ago, and foresworn earplugs before crawling into a dusty sleeping bag, hoping that, once lulled by the pulsing techno beat throbbing off the playa, my bladder would awaken me in time to break camp, hit the road, and catch the last plane home. Once settled in, I launched a sleepy review of the week I had just spent at Burning Man, an account that seemed to end as soon as it began. The pressure of water in this arid land synched with the techno, and then I was awake.

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I had followed this festival from the late 1990s, vicariously at first over the net, then through full field immersion as an enthusiastic participant observer. Burning Man has morphed from its simple 1980s origin as a local bonfire communion of intimates to an encampment of 50,000 nomads from around the globe. Arising in the middle of a desert in Nevada (and, as quickly as a mirage, vanishing), this evanescent enclave, christened ‘‘Black Rock City,’’ is home to a week-long celebration of aesthetic creativity, authentic presence and radical self-expression that culminates in the fiery sacrifice of a 50-foot human effigy. Pilgrims engage in a gift economy, circulating all manner of presents intended to nourish body and soul, all the while trusting in self-reliance and the kindness of strangers to ensure a stylish survival in this harsh climate. I have come to think of the festival as a pomo cargo cult, where the destruction and redistribution of goods induces the gods to return to earth. No matter how inexorably the spectacle has escalated, my cynical disappointment always evaporates, because I have come to expect an inevitable epiphany. Wandering the desert floor, sweltering during the day and freezing at night, unsure at times whether I am strolling on another planet or floating like an avatar on the web, I await the in-to-body experience that tells me I have returned. I find a week of sensory overload and living rough in close quarters is a balm to the imagination. As quietly as darkness and groggy clumsiness allowed, I packed my remaining gear, pulled stakes and levered rebar from ground as pliant as settled concrete, collapsed poles, folded and stowed my tent, packed the rented van and policed my area for moop – matter out of place – a coinage much beloved of Burners, whether they could tie the acronym to Mary Douglas or not. Silently begging for forgiveness and bidding farewell to my camp mates, I started the engine and slowly pulled away, wending cautiously along the hub-and-spoke roadbed. Street signs, long potted for souvenirs or altered in anarchic bursts of performance art, no longer showed the way, nor could the Man, now burned (again) serve as a lodestar for the departing. I crept along a rough diagonal, past the nearly sleeping and the merely celebrating, trying to keep my dust cloud profile small as I joined the growing exodus headed for open ground. Turning the air conditioner on full-blast, I luxuriated in the cold after the long stretch of almost unbelievable heat. A veteran Burner myself, I had still managed a close brush with heat exhaustion earlier in the week, the fieldworker’s zeal once again trumping common sense. I pointed every vent I could reach directly at my body, and anxiously consulted the gas gauge. I had not refueled before off-roading onto the playa last Monday, and

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wondered whether I should risk running amenities with little prospect of a timely refill. ‘‘Fuck it,’’ I muttered. I would let the burn in my frostbitten ears determine when to shut down the air. I punched on the radio (thank God for SIRIUS) and searched for some outlaw country to ease me out of the New Age and back into the world. I would ride out of one Wild West on the anthem of another. By the time I acquired a signal and could afford to deflect my attention from the hejira to the music, several ballads had been mourned and growled. It was barely 3:00 am. I had just nudged my van into the long column of decamping pilgrims, careful not to graze the bicycles bungeed carelessly on the back of the RV in front of me, and begun the fitful tromping on the brake pedal whose irregular rhythm I trusted would keep me awake for the few hours it would take to leave the desert floor and rejoin the highway, when the apparition emerged out of the swirling dust of the playa. Initially as indistinct as a dream, and, after seven days of sleep deprivation punctuated by combat naps, just about as real, the figure resolved on the periphery of the headlights. Slowly approaching the empty shotgun seat, pumping one palm to encourage me to dampen my speed and cranking the other wrist to coax me into lowering the window, the haggard sentinel appeared ready to board my vehicle. Had we been back in Chicago, I would have expected him to produce a spray bottle and newspaper, but here in Black Rock City, such wiping would soon leave a clay glaze on the windshield. As I braked to a stop, choking briefly on the dust billowing into the cabin, he poked his head through the open window, glanced quickly around the cabin, and greeted me with a tired smile. ‘‘Mornin’,’’ he drawled. ‘‘Will be in a few more hours, I imagine,’’ I replied, twisting in my seat and leaning against the wheel, to square up to my night visitor. ‘‘I’m DPW,’’ he announced. Department of Public Works, responsible for creation, maintenance, and leave-no-trace removal of the entire infrastructure that is Black Rock City, my sluggish brain decoded. ‘‘You guys were awesome!’’ I gushed, before I could regain the solemnity that the ghostly encounter seemed to demand. ‘‘You got the new Man up way faster than anyone thought you could. You saved the week!’’ I reached my arm across the cab to shake his hand. Accepting my thanks with the same tired smile, he scoped the cabin once again, focused briefly on the dusty console, and then released my hand before beginning his pitch. For a member of a tribe so renowned for its brazen attitude, his tone was surprisingly apologetic. Striving for imperious, settling for sheepish, he sought to extort a present.

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‘‘DPW is accepting gifts,’’ he informed me. Any kind of donation is welcomed. Fuel, water, food y’’ His voice trailed off, the inventory not yet polished to a script. ‘‘y Alcohol. Any kind of alcohol would be good y Medicine, cooking gear y Sunscreen y’’ I am embarrassed that I had not anticipated such an exit toll (even if couched as a handsel) and feel the small stirrings of shame. I had held my own personal potlatch the evening before, wandering the neighboring encampments, disbursing stores among those who would remain and materiel to those with the storage capacity to haul stuff to their permanent homes. ‘‘I’m sorry, man.’’ The beginnings of a lame excuse competing with a stifled yawn drew out my response. ‘‘I gave it all away last night. Anything I couldn’t carry on the plane is gone.’’ Still, he persisted. ‘‘You got nothin’, huh?’’ ‘‘Nope. I gave it all away.’’ His eyes stray again to the console. I continue my guilty denial. ‘‘All I’ve got is a half-bottle of water, a couple of granola bars, and some Gummi shit. It’s peach, I think. You’re welcome to any of that, if you want it.’’ I hold the small bag of fruit bits out to him, a self-conscious gesture that further deepens my embarrassment. ‘‘That’s your food for the road?’’ he asks. I can’t tell if he’s touched by my gesture, or offended by its paucity. ‘‘Yep, but you can have it. Really.’’ This desperate protestation caps my shame. After a long pause, he sighs, ‘‘I can’t take that. But I will take your handshake, and your thanks. Safe trip, and see you back next year.’’ Having found something in the exchange to save face for each of us, he rapped twice on the window frame to announce his departure, and strolled down the caravan in search of a true donor. I had turned the radio volume way down at the beginning of the encounter, and had gradually grown aware of the silence as my slow progress resumed. I spun the dial to amp the soundtrack of departure once again, and was rewarded with an eerie old Terry Allen ballad suited absolutely to the moment. Let me digress. Burners often speak of ‘‘playadipity,’’ a kind of serendipitous synchronicity that matches the authentic, frequently unarticulated openness to experience and a resonantly personal response from the universe, with an abiding rightness that is at once intellectual and visceral. They speak as well of ‘‘playa gifts,’’ and cultivate an optimism in the face of

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a relentless and inconstant desert climate the community seeks to tame by repeating an article of faith: ‘‘the playa will provide.’’ I had had several such experiences over the course of this field trip. While stockpiling in Chicago, I was hailed by the shrieks of a majestic red hawk, perched unaccountably on a lamppost in the parking lot of Best Buy. While provisioning in Reno, I arrived in the bike aisle of WalMart precisely as a newly assembled model beating my predetermined price point was being wheeled out onto the floor, enabling me to take a seamless handoff directly to the checkout counter. While I watched the spectacular progression of a total lunar eclipse on Monday, another spectacle played out across the playa, as, in an act of vandalism subsequently described as ‘‘artson,’’ the Man was unceremoniously and prematurely burned. While interviewing Burners on the perimeter of the pyre later in the week, I was present for the unexpected re-illumination of Man 2.0, the phoenix flying across his visage a tangible expression of the community’s devotion to sacrifice. While hunkering down in Media Mecca after days of eating bland trail food, I battened on performance art barbeque that materialized miraculously during a Carne Assaulta. Terry Allen’s radio road song was just such playadipity. The lyrics of his ‘‘Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy’’ seemed a stunning coda to my encounter with the man from DPW, and a fitting capstone to the field work. The song recounts an episode of late-night wilderness hitchhiking, in which a properly chastened good ol’ boy picks up a raucous Jesus Christ, who delivers Gnostic enlightenment and promises salvation to the driver before committing a murderous carjacking. In the driver’s words: Well I pulled up scared but I heard him say As he left me beneath the stars ‘‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways And tonight my son y he’s gonna use your car

When I arrived at Black Rock City a week ago, I was met with the ritual intake greeting, ‘‘Welcome home.’’ This ballad bulleted my findings in the field in its contrapuntal sounding of my impromptu leave-taking ceremony. The bitchiness of karma, the capriciousness of fate, the quicksilver boundary between scapegrace and scapegoat, the sacrifice at the heart of the gift, and, above all else the nomadic urge to circulate. Lost in this reverie for miles, I returned to the moment as the caravan picked up speed. In the near distance, I could see vehicles peeling off on either side of the fork, their blinking tail lights diverging symmetrically like the tiny embers flying from a stirred camp fire. Then, climbing quickly from

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the dusty trail to macadam, and more quickly still to highway, I pointed the van toward the default world, and followed other pilgrims. Where are we bound? Can we go home again? Divided by some coefficient of weirdness (as Malinowski willed) intricately derived by each of us each year, this festal fire is banked. It becomes a hearth. Black Rock City has inscribed itself on every pilgrim. The playa dust has flocked our vehicles. It is embedded in our hair and skin. It suffuses our clothing and gear. We each bear gifts from other pilgrims and bring gifts for absent friends that bind us to this place. We will reminisce for months on-line and plan the next migration in the ether, as if we all still dwelled in the same camp. Such musing animates this caravan as it snakes out of the desert, en route to home away from home. And I will bring more gifts to our next raucous reunion, and sow them more promiscuously, save for one. Absinthe, perhaps. Or mustum. A valedictory gift for the highwayman of DPW.

NOTE 1. Fontana, Andrea (2001), ‘‘Salt Fever: An Ethnographic Narrative in Four Sections,’’ Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 24: 147–163.