Culture & Power Padlet by B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu Made with the help of a typing monkey en-us 2020-09-25 15:51:40 UTC 2025-03-21 09:43:32 UTC hello@padlet.com Week 2- Crime & Punishment B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821379811 This weeks readings pushed me to think about 'who gets policed' but also 'who do the police protect?'. The latter question reminded me of a book I read this year 'Revolting Prostitutes' by Juno Mac and Molly Smith  (2018).  This book tackles the idea of the police as an institution and questions who the police are actually there to protect.
The police state that they are there to protect sex workers from trafficking and bodily harm. Mac & Smith explain how in practice the police do the exact opposite as they criminalise the everyday lives of sex workers, taking away their workers rights. By criminalising sex workers, it means that the police no longer serve them and they cannot rely on the police for protection or security.
 
All sex workers are policed. However we cannot ignore that for people of colour, transgender people and immigrants, the consequences of  being policed are usually much higher. This means that the police only serve to protect a small proportion of society and act as a danger to the rest. This book, along with Didier Fassan's "who gets punished" has helped me understand that who society deems to be a victim and who it deems to be punishable.


Below I have left a quote from the book which I feel sums up my thoughts on this weeks questions.


“A sex worker who is living precariously or in poverty, who is at risk of criminalisation or police violence, or who is being exploited by a manager or lacks negotiating power is not likely to be particularly 'sex positive' at work. These factors are structural, not a function of the worker's state of enlightenment.”]]> 2020-10-12 12:02:18 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821379811 Week 3- Migration, Citizenship & borders B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821380346 This week's discussion on citizenship led me to think about Shamima Begum and her ongoing fight to regain UK citizenship and return home. Having left the UK in 2015 to join IS in Syria. 

For me, Shamima Begum highlights the idea that citizenship is not any one fixed thing. In Shamran Khosravi's  The 'illegal' traveller, he describes how even after years of living as a Swedish citizen, when he goes through border controls at an airport in the UK he is treated with suspicion. This highlights the point that citizenship is not just a passport or a document, it is also whom is perceived to deserves to live in certain countries and who doesn't.

The image below shows just some of the media narrative that surrounds Shamima Begum. A large proportion of newspaper and social media posts surrounding her case have racist and islamaphobic origins.

I would argue that if Shamima Begum was white, the UK government would have granted her citizenship and felt a obligation to accept her back into the country. This shows not only that citizenship is based around who is perceived to be 'deserving' but also that this deservingness is largely based around race.

]]> 2020-10-12 12:02:44 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821380346 week 4- Power, resistance & protest B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821380813 In 'discipline and punish',  Foucault discusses 'normalisation' ; a form of social control in which we are controlled due to being too afraid to step out of the status quo.

Rebecca More and Sophie Anderson (aka 'the cock destroyers') are a symbol of resistance to normalisation, as porn actors and sex workers who have resisted against the stigmatisation that comes with these roles. 

Sex work is constrained through disciplinary power but also through normalising power, sex workers are 'supposed' to hide their work and feel ashamed.
 
The cock destroyers are known for being vocal online and open about their work, both past and present. 

This photo of them in their Netflix series in which they teach sex education best symbolises this resistance because a) they got onto a mainstream, family-friendly streaming service,  B) they are educating people about the one thing they have been stigmatised for doing. 


In 'The romance of resistance', Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) shows that often when we resist against one form of power,  we reproduce other types of power. I would argue that since power is omnipresent,  when you resist against one form of power, it is likely you will have to submit to another form of power. However, I do not think it's always true that you create new forms of power. 

You could argue that this is true for the cock destroyers. They have resisted normalisation and overstepped the boundaries of what it means to be a sex worker. However, by pushing porn & sex work into a more 'mainstream' environment they now have to submit to new forms of power such as living up to peoples expectations and perceptions of them and being 'entertainers'. Especially on a hugely dominant platform such as Netflix. 
]]> 2020-10-12 12:03:03 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821380813 Week 2- Crime & Punishment B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821660967 https://www.itv.com/hub/stephen-lawrence-has-britain-changed/10a0470a0001

Above is a link to a ITV panel special titled "Stephen Lawrence: Has Britain changed?" which was broadcast July 2020.

This one hour segment discussed the case of Stephen Lawrence; a British teenager who was murdered in a racially- motivated attack in 1993. It took 19 years for the perpetrators to be punished.

In Fassin's "who gets punished?" he shows that punishment exists to differentiate between those who are 'good' and those who are 'bad'. Stephen Lawrence's murder and aftermath shows clearly the disparities among who the police serve to protect and who they deem to be a threat. The police are not only more likely to punish people of colour but are also less likely to protect and bring them justice. The recent Black Lives Matter protests have highlighted that these disparities haven't been shifted in the UK.

The panel discusses the police as an institution and what (if anything) can be done to fix institutional racism within the police. One quote that stood out to me from the discussion was from Chante Joseph:

"I think policing as an entire institution is just rotten to the core "It’s not an issue of bad apples, the whole tree is rotten. Our whole justice system is rotten. The way that we prosecute white people and Black people for the same crime but a Black person will get a longer sentence".

]]> 2020-10-12 13:59:45 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/821660967 Week 3- Migration, citizenship & borders B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/824343666 Apologies for using the same source as last week. However the chapter "Borders" in 'revolting prostitutes' has strongly influenced my thinking on borders and migration. 

Molly Smith & Juno Mac call for a complete abolition of borders; something which many people would consider radical. They argue that if we want to completely absolve sex work, we would first need to abolish borders. 

In Shamran Khosravi's "The 'illegal' traveller",  he discusses his journey of being smuggled across borders and the fact that many different people along the way profited off of him being 'illegal'. However, if he were caught it would be him who would get reprimanded not the various others who broke the law to smuggle him. 

Smith & Mac state that most victims of trafficking are not taken from inside of 'their' country. Most pay a smuggler to illegally take them into the country, and since they are already doing something illegal, the smugglers will sell & traffick them. 

Both Khosravi and Smith & Mac give evidence to support the fact that borders danger people. They also show that borders create an opportunity for smugglers to criminalise themselves for profit.  Until borders are abolished or controls are substantially eased, trafficking, smuggling and migrant sex worker will continue in a cycle. ]]> 2020-10-13 10:43:33 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/824343666 Week 4- Power, resistance & Protest B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/824404940 The video below outlines the tactics deployed for the ongoing Hong Kong protests. 
This video went viral on facebook earlier this year, people were mesmerised by the exhaustive detail and organisation that these students have been using. 

Ardent's concept of the 'revolutionary moment' interested me this week and provoked me to question what sparks a protest. However, this video pushes this question further and makes me wonder what makes a good protest vs a failed protest. 

Most people would consider this protest to be incredibly tactile and organised. So what sparks a city- wide protest to be so streamlined when others can fail so badly? 



]]> 2020-10-13 11:30:06 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/824404940 Week 5- Violence and power B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/855583153 I would consider the Netflix film 'The Platform' to be a good analogy of structural violence. The platform is a prison which you can be sent to for crimes or enter voluntarily in exchange for some kind of reward (in this case, the main character enters the platform in exchange for a diploma). Everyday a table of food is passed down through over 300 levels and it is up to the people at the top if they leave anything for the people at the bottom. This is a very literal and obvious analogy for capitalism and social heirarchies in which those at the top of society are responsible for the lives of those at the bottom. In the film there is a lot of graphic violence, with the people at the bottom partaking in gruesome acts of murder in order to save themselves. The main protagnist in the film becomes corrupted by violence for no other reason other than survival. At the beginning of the film he is shocked at the inhumane way people treat each other but ends up taking part. You could argue that this is an analogy for structural violence because the system he is living in gives him no other choice but to both experience and partake in violence.]]> 2020-10-23 12:50:15 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/855583153 Week 5- violence and power B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/855622399  "It is as if a malign vapour rises from the Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians" (The Economist, 2012). 

"The Glasgow effect" refers to the fact that there is a line in Glasgow that if you pass the life expectancy rate decreases drasticly. Men in glasgow die on average a full seven years younger than UK counterparts. The main reason being poverty and high rates of suicides and drug overdoses (which many would argue are both symptoms of poverty). The Guardian article below suggests that the post-war urban planning in which they created various new and overpopulated towns has lead to poorer mental health and livelihood. 

Many residents of these areas have lived there their whole life and have been exposed to violence, abuse and drug use from a young age. This has led  mental health problems and higher suicide rates and often works in a cycle. 

The idea that poor urban planning will shorten the life span of many glasgwegians who have little to no choice in the matter expemplifies structural violence.


]]> 2020-10-23 13:02:53 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/855622399 Week 6- understanding violence B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/876359047 Devji's paper on the terrorist in search for humanity reminded me of when the CIA released the contents of Osama Bin Laden's hard drive. Instantly this was shared across social media channels and made into edited memes and videos as many of the things downloaded were rather comical. For example 'cars' , 'chicken little 2'  and 'where in the world is osama bin laden'. 

Understandably, it is funny. However I also think it's interesting that we see terrorists as being so far removed from humanity and what we think of as normality, that the idea of them enjoying a film is hilarious yet also quite disturbing. I feel that many people see terrorists as disney- style villians who only serve to plot evil acts, therefore the idea that they seek pleasure or find humour in the same ways we do can be hard to wrap our heads around. 

However, you could also argue that we often find it harder to understand violence that comes from an 'other'. When our own politicians commit acts of terror on other countries, we still see them as multifaceted human beings carrying out a job. However, we very rarely humanise IS members, for example, in the same way. Understanding violence is not something that happens in a vacuum. It is almost always tied to concepts of race and power and it is these very concepts that build our understanding of violence and its perpetrators.]]> 2020-10-30 13:47:56 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/876359047 week 6- understanding violence B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/876398586 This recording of a UN seminar discusses political violence targeted at women. Although this seminar focuses generally on the victims of political violence (women), they look at the language used when peope talk about this issue. They discuss the fact that often when we talk about this issue we say 'violence against women' which situates the perpotrator outside of the picture. Whilst it's important to centre the victim/s of violence, we need to understand and engage with the people who commit acts of violence. ]]> 2020-10-30 13:58:30 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/876398586 week 7- Violence and its consequences B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/894313753 A few weeks ago, I listened to this episode of BBC 4 radio, in which they discuss Donald Trump's claims that he knows how to handle coronarvirus better since catching it himself as it is now his 'lived experience'. Although a very literal example of the term 'lived experience' being appropriated for politicalo purposes, it serves as a good place to discuss the limitations to this concept. I would argue that there are certain things that people have to experience to get a deep understanding of; structural racism, misogny, poverty,  or in this case violence. However, everything is contextual and I would argue that lived experience is only one form of authority. I would argue that having lived experience of violence in many cases will help us understand the roots of violence and those who commit acts of violence, however it's not the only value of understanding. In many cases, this claim of 'lived experience' can undermine politics as it is used as a tool of power. For example, the case of Donald Trump.



]]> 2020-11-05 15:10:16 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/894313753 week 7-violence and its consquences B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/901784258 This week, following the discussions on the consequences on violence and looking at how anthoroplogists have grappled with this topic often without showing or talking explicitly about violence, I wanted to share this 1993 art installation By Chris Burden titled 'uniform'.  This piece was made after the attack on Rodney King in the US which sparked riots. It is made to fit someone 7ft 4, signifying dominance and authority. Art like this instigates interesting points within the topic of violence- as the uniform becomes a symbol of violence without ever explicitly seeing forms of violence and their consequences. However, as Chris Burden, was a successful and wealthy artist at the time, who had not felt the direct impact of police violence due to his position, it leads us to question whether it is appropriate that he base so much of his work on police violence. I think this is an important question for anthropology too: Where is the line between your work being the voices of your informants, to profiting from and appropriating the violent experiences of others? ]]> 2020-11-08 16:23:17 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/901784258 week 8- The People B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941146357 "People Make Glasgow" is a slogan created in 2013 by the city council. The image below is the sign installed on the Met Tower for the 2014 commnwealth games.
This branding as generally be a popular one, it pays homage to the idea that people literally made glasgow by building many of the famous establishments and also through industry. It also places 'people' at the heart of what makes Glasgow Glasgow.

In Glasgow, roughly 1 in 3 children are living in poverty and, as discussed in week 5's padlet, it is home to 'the glasgow effect'. The branding of 'people make glasgow' is focused within the city centre around high end shopping areas and restaurants. Many of the 'people' who make glasgow through industry are absent from these places and have been pushed to the outskirts of the city. The shops that surround this branding are not owned by people of Glasgow but instead big profit businesses such as Apple, Nike.

Although this is not the same usage of the people that we see in populism. I think it's still interesting to look at the ways concepts of 'the people' are used through marketing.

This reaffirms the notion that many bodies of power (in this case Glasgow council) rely on being seen to represent 'the people' as a single homogenous group.]]> 2020-11-19 13:23:27 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941146357 Week 8- The People B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941147196 The podcast linked below questions social media's impact on the rise of populism by looking specifically at memes.

Memes (defined here as simplified messages known to spread virally online) can act as powerful tools for political propaganda. Memes have the ability to simplify political discourse into things  being 'good' or 'bad', with little room for nuance.

Social media can be seen as the 'voice of the underdog', a space where people with no organisational affiliation can share their voices and find others who have a shared interest. This can be a breeding ground for populism.

Social media was a huge factor in Donald Trump's rise to power and a good example of how social media and memes can act as a tool for populist movements.

"Memes are central to group identification" which means they can be the perfect way to elevate a populist movement.

I would argue that social media is a big factor in the rise of populism due to many online users occupying online echo chambers. This means that voters no longer have a shared reality as they are often living in seperate online bubbles which have formed a new reality. This makes it easier for populist leaders to thrive.]]> 2020-11-19 13:23:41 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941147196 Week 9-populism B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941147666 This week, I am sharing the 2016 documentary 'politics, instructions manual' which follows the spanish left-wing political party 'Podemos' into parliament. Podemos quickly rose to power only two years after their creation and many would attribute to Pablo Iglesias, the leader of podemos. Podemos in spain, for many are seen as representatives of the people, their name literally translates to 'we can'. 

This probes us to think about the horseshoe theory in populist discourse, in which some would argue that we can have both left wing and right wing populism and at the extreme end of both they begin to look the same. However, it also evokes the question of what the differences and similiarities of populism and nationalism are. Also what the key differences are betweem left-wing populism and right-wing populism and why this is important to understand in anthropology. 

This is also linked to my other padlet post this week on social media and populism. Populism relies heavily on symbolism and the defining of a single symbol people can relate to. In this case,  Iglesias is seen as the symbol of the movement, and this has been amplified mainly through social media.]]> 2020-11-19 13:23:48 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941147666 week 9- populism B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941148757 There has been contrasting debates on the effect that coronavirus will have on populism within both academia and the media. Some have argued that coronavirus could hinder populist movements because  the pandemic has reinforced the importance of institutions and expertise (Wright & Campbell, 2020). The guardian article below suggests on the contrary, that we may see a rise of a new wave of populism. 


He looks comparatively at the economic crisis we are entering to the 2008 crash and shows that economic and political failures are almost always linked. 

]]> 2020-11-19 13:24:07 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/941148757 week 10- elections B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/959788593 I would argue that Trump's denounciation of the 2020 election result is a form of populist tactic. However, that is not to say that elections are representative of democracy. The below article from April this year, discusses how one apolitical women fought to end 'gerrymandering' in Michigin.

"While the practice of politicians redrawing district lines in their favor dates to the early 1800s in Massachusetts, recent technology has taken gerrymandering in America to the extreme. Now, following each decennial census count, it’s legal for state politicians to hire mapmakers to use software that precisely manipulates bizarrely squiggled districts"  

Gerrymandering highlights just one way that the electoral college fails to accurately represent voters. ]]> 2020-11-25 13:28:46 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/959788593 week 10- elections B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/959789091 While looking at the internal process of elections and the impact they have on society. It's important to also understand the impact they don't have on many people. In recent years, there has been a push on voting as a 'moral duty'. If you look at the 2020 US election, many celebrities took to social media with pictures of them at polling stations or with their postal vote telling others that they need to vote. 

The zine attached is central to understanding elections and concepts of the people as it argues that voting is not always an expression of freedom or an opportunity to improve their lives. As discussed this week and in the lecture from week 8, voting can also be regarded as submission to political systems and reaffirms government control.

]]> 2020-11-25 13:28:55 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/959789091 week 6- understanding violence B113474 https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/968883849 Farmer's analysis of structural violence this week made me think of this talk with Judith Butler discussing biopolitics and necropolitics and COVID-19. 

Butler shows how the pandemic has higlighted structures of violence in which there is a fugitive form of sovereignty. This can be seen through the unequal stastics of deaths, with people of colour being more likely to die from covid. They also dicuss how covid may change the way many 'everyday' people view violence. Many of us now make daily decisions which could harm and even kill others- going out in large groups, wearing/ not wearing a mask, going to bars where we know we could pass on the virus to workers- Butler explains how although it is not as explicit as shooting people, we are constantly makking choices that could lead to anothers death. In this sense, I think covid has altered the way many people, mostly people in priviledged positions both economically and racially, see violence. We are constantly being made aware of 'sanatized deaths'. 

]]> 2020-11-29 15:51:13 UTC https://padlet.com/b113474/mu5rskqe2wyarnwu/wish/968883849