Anthony Elliott

Beck's Sociology of Risk: A Critical Assessment

The German sociologist Ulrich Beck has elaborated a highly original formulation of the theory of risk and reflexive modernization, a formulation that has had a significant impact upon recent sociological theorizing and research. This article examines Becks sociology of risk in the context of his broader social theory of reflexvity, advanced modernization and individualization. The article argues that Becks work is constrained by several sociological weaknesses: namely, a dependence upon objectivistic and instrumental models of the social construction of risk and uncertainty in social relations, and a failure to adequately define the relations between institutional dynamism on the one hand and self-referentiality and critical reflection on the other. As a contribution to the reformulation and further development of Becks approach to sociological theory, the article seeks to suggest other ways in which the link between risk and reflexivity might be pursued. These include a focus upon 91) the intermixing of reflexivity and reflection in social relations; (2) contemporary ideologies of domination and power; and (3) a dialectical notion of modernity and postmodernization.

Trust makers, breakers and brokers: building trust in the Australian food system.

BackgroundThe importance of consumer trust in the food supply has previously been identified, and dimensions of consumer trust in food—who they trust and the type of trust that they exhibit—has been explored. However, there is a lack of research about the mechanisms through which consumer trust in the food supply is developed, maintained, broken and repaired. This study seeks to address this gap by exploring if, and how, consumer trust in the food supply is considered by the media, food industry and governments when responding to food scares. The aim of the research is to develop models of trust building that can be implemented following food scares.MethodsSemi-structured interviews will be undertaken with media, public relations officials and policy makers in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Participants will be recruited through purposive sampling and will be asked to discuss a hypothetical case study outlining a food incident, and any experiences of specific food scares. Models of trust development, maintenance and repair will be developed from interview data. Comment on these models will be sought from experts in food-related organizations through a Delphi study, where participants will be asked to consider the usefulness of the models. Participants’ comments will be used to revise the models until consensus is reached on the suitability and usability of the models.DiscussionThis study will contribute to the literature about systems-based trust, and explore trust as a social and regulatory process. The protocol and results will be of interest and use to the food industry, food regulators, consumer advocate groups, media seeking to report food-related issues and policy makers concerned with public health and consumer health and well-being. This research represents an important contribution to the translation of the theoretical conceptualizations of trust into practical use in the context of food.

‘I Want To Look Like That!’: Cosmetic Surgery and Celebrity Culture

This article critically examines the power of celebrity culture in relation to the rise of cosmetic surgery. The perspective developed is one that attempts to bridge certain developments in social theory and psychoanalytic studies. By drawing on Horton and Wohl’s notion of ‘para-social interaction’, as well as Thompson’s idea of ‘intimacy at a distance’, a critical cultural approach is developed for the analysis of how celebrity bodies become key sites of identification, imitation and desire. The article also draws from the psychoanalytic notion of identification in order to recast the relationship between fandom and celebrity. My argument is that popular and media cultures today are introducing a wholesale shift away from a focus on personalities to celebrity body-parts and their artificial enhancement. To view the body in the light of celebrity culture means, in effect, to see the self increasingly in terms of possible surgical alterations.

The Social Imaginary: A Critical Assessment of Castoriadis's Psychoanalytic Social Theory

141 The main part of this text was first presented at a conference, “New Sources of Critical Theory,” of the International Sociological Association held at the University of Cambridge in 2000, then as a seminar at the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at Birkbeck College, London, in 2001. I wish to thank the late Cornelius Castoriadis for his extensive comments on an earlier draft of the essay. Thanks also to Nicola Geraghty, Anthony Moran, Nick Stevenson, Lynne Segal, and Stephen Frosh. Peter Rudnytsky provided incisive editorial assistance. ANTHONY ELLIOTT

Celebrity and Political Psychology: Remembering Lennon

This article is a contribution toward the task of constructing a distinctive political psychology and social theory of celebrity. The article begins by noting some recent approaches to the analysis of mass communications in political theory, and moves to consider what these theories mean for the conceptual analysis of celebrity. A substantive example of the political construction of celebrity is given in a case study of the ex-Beatle, John Lennon—specifically, the social drama surrounding his death in 1980. A number of issues, ranging from the denial of death in modernity to the multiplex modes of cultural remembering, are discussed as they relate to celebrity.

The Constitution of the Subject Primary Repression after Kristeva and Laplanche

This article traces recent developments in European social theory and psychoanalysis on the theory of the human subject. Critically examining the recent psychoanalytic departures of Julia Kristeva and Jean Laplanche on the status of primary repression as a condition for the constitution of subjectivity, an analysis is presented of the state of the subject in its unconscious relational world. The article suggests ways in which the analyses set out by Kristeva and Laplanche can be further refined and developed, partly through a reconsideration of the intertwining of unconscious representation and repression as developed in the writings of Cornelius Castoriadis, Thomas Ogden and others. For existing psychoanalytical accounts the article suggests we should substitute the concept of ‘rolling identification’, the psychical basis of the shift from self-referential representational activity to an elementary form of inter-subjectivity. Rolling identifications are defined as a representational flux that permits human subjects to create a relation to the self-as-object and pre-object relations. Such primal identification, the article suggests, operates through a ‘representational wrapping of self and others’. The article concludes with a consideration of the cultural significance of primary repression, and the politicization of identification.

The Ethical Antinomies of Postmodernity

Alberto Melucci, The Playing Self: Person and Meaning in the Planetary Society , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, £13.95 paperback, vii+177 pp. (ISBN 0-521-56482-4) Charles Lemert, Postmodernism Is Not What You Think , Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997, £15.99 paperback, xiv+185 pp. (ISBN 1-55786-286-9) Chris Rojek and Bryan S. Turner (eds.), The Politics of Jean-Francois Lyotard , London: Routledge, 1998, £55.00, vii+168 pp. (ISBN 0-415-11724-0) Barry Smart, Facing Modernity: Ambivalence, Reflexivity and Morality , London: Sage, 1998, £45.00 hardback (£14.99 paperback), 224 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-5520-8) Postmodernism is routinely identified with political radicalism. From one angle, it is easy enough to see why this is so, for many of the leading theorists of postmodernity hail from that side of the political spectrum (such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Fredric Jameson). From another angle, though, it is much less obvious that postmodernism is itself a radical social and political concern. Indeed, the opposite might plausibly be argued. What has happened with the advent of so-called postmodern society is the collapse of modernist rationality, core community values, and ethical and moral foundations. The sociological message in this reading is that postmodernism, in fact, spells a repressive reorganisation of everyday life within the ideological structures of the global capitalist economy itself. Thus the advent of postmodernism – with its dazzling globalisation of social relations, its deconstruction of metaphysical foundations, its reifying of technology and its cult of consumer hedonism – fits hand in glove with the imperatives of a market logic in which everything goes but nothing much counts. Or so the story goes.

Terminal experimentation: The transformation of experiences, events and escapes at global airports

Recent debates in aeromobilities research have focused on global shifts in airport socialities generated by the redesign of airport terminals (Cwerner et al., 2009). This article examines transformations to identity and social relations arising from the reinvention of airport infrastructures and facilities, especially the experience of airport services. We suggest here that the arrival of ‘smart airports’, or how we use the term ‘Airport 3.0’, involves an experimentalist orientation deriving from contemporary economic and cultural life. The general argument is that the reinvention of global airport spaces is producing three key transformations: (1) experimentalist orientations arising from the deployment of new information technologies; (2) an experimental business engineering of consumer worlds, or ‘worlding’; and (3) travel-time use geared to a world of infinite innovation. Finally, the article reviews transformations in passenger experience in the light of these conceptual claims.

Media actors’ perceptions of their roles in reporting food incidents

BackgroundPrevious research has shown that the media can play a role in shaping consumer perceptions during a public health crisis. In order for public health professionals to communicate well-informed health information to the media, it is important that they understand how media view their role in transmitting public health information to consumers and decide what information to present. This paper reports the perceptions of media actors from three countries about their role in reporting information during a food incident. This information is used to present ideas and suggestions for public health professionals working with media during food incidents.MethodsThirty three semi-structured interviews with media actors from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were conducted and analysed thematically. Media actors were recruited via purposive sampling using a sampling strategy, from a variety of formats including newspaper, television, radio and online.ResultsMedia actors said that during a food incident, they play two roles. First, they play a role in communicating information to consumers by acting as a conduit for information between the public and the relevant authorities. Second, they play a role as investigators by acting as a public watchdog.ConclusionMedia actors are an important source of consumer information during food incidents. Public health professionals can work with media by actively approaching them with information about food incidents; promoting to media that as public health professionals, they are best placed to provide the facts about food incidents; and by providing angles for further investigation and directing media to relevant and correct information to inform such investigations. Public health professionals who adapt how they work with media are more likely to influence media to portray messages that fit what they would like the public to know and that are in line with public health recommendations and enable consumers to engage in safe and health promoting behaviours in response to food incidents.

New individualist configurations and the social imaginary Castoriadis and Kristeva

The broad purpose of this article is to explore the theoretical conditions for understanding the new individualist configurations of imagination and identity in contemporary culture and critical discourse. The article begins with a sketch of recent debates in social theory on identity, individualization and new individualism, focusing on the work of Giddens, Beck, and Bauman, as well as Lemert and Elliott. The second part of the article turns to consider, in some detail, the path breaking contributions of Cornelius Castoriadis on the demise of the social imaginary in conditions of advanced capitalism or what he termed the spread of ‘generalized conformism’. Whilst making the argument that the notion of ‘generalized conformism’ is of key importance in grasping the subjective and cultural dynamics promoted by the global electronic economy, the article also underscores the limitations of Castoriadis’s psychoanalytic and political position. The third section of the article offers a pathway beyond such constraint by examining the recent social-theoretical contributions of Julia Kristeva on ‘new maladies of the soul’. Like Castoriadis, Kristeva focuses on the atrophy of imagination in contemporary times, but does so from a more complex psychoanalytic prism. The article concludes that the work of both Castoriadis and Kristeva are essential to grasping contemporary shifts in the new individualism.