Suzanne Reimer

Spatializing commodity chains

There has been a growing interest in connecting production and consumption through the study of commodity chains. We identify three distinct approaches to the chain and review debates concerning the merits of a ‘vertical’ rather than a ‘horizontal’ approach. Drawing upon the example of the home furnishings commodity chain, the article highlights the importance of including horizontal factors such as gender and place alongside vertical chains. We consider geographical contingencies which underpin commodity chain dynamics, the role of space in mediating relationships across the chain and the spatialities of different products.

Geographies of commodity chains

Individuals, consumer groups, nation states and supra-national bodies increasingly have interrogated the ethics of particular production and consumption relations such as GM foods. Flowing from and bound up with these political concerns is the growing interest in the mutual dependence of sites of (for example) production, distribution, retailing, design, advertising, marketing and final consumption. Commodity Chains draws together contributions concerned with the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. Not only do these case study examples seek to transcend older understandings of production and consumption, but they also explicitly tap into wider public debate about the meanings, origins and biographies of commodities. Taking a geographical approach to the analysis of links between producers and consumers, focusing upon the ways in which these ties increasingly are stretched across spaces and places. Critical engagements with the ways in which these spaces and places affect the economies, cultures and politics of the connections between producers and consumers are threaded through each section.

DESIGN SPACES: AGGLOMERATION AND CREATIVITY IN BRITISH DESIGN AGENCIES

Abstract. Although there is a growing body of research into the cultural and creative industries, little work has focused specifically upon on the geography of design and its role in regional economies. The relative neglect of the geography of the UK design industry is surprising given recent assertions about the sectors role in national economic competitiveness; its contribution to product innovation; and its importance as an urban regeneration resource. This paper explicitly considers the extent to which existing conceptualizations of agglomeration and creativity provide insights into the realm of design. Our discussion reflects upon recent surveys of the design sector and analyses current design organization membership data, both of which reveal an overwhelming concentration of design activities in London and the South East. Our analysis of the strategies, organization and practices of agencies in London reveals that a number of the key features associated with cultural industries in general are significantly less discernible within design.

Identity, consumption and the home

Despite a rich literature on the power dynamics of households within domestic space, the specificities of home consumption have been undertheorized within broader accounts of consumption and identity. Consumption frequently is conceptualized as a individualistic process, undertaken by a single self-reflexive actor. Focusing upon the purchasing, acquisition and display of furniture and other domestic goods, this article reflects upon the role of home consumption in identity construction within both individual households as well as different household groups. We argue that home consumption at times may be equally important to both individual and multiple households—despite conventional associations between homemaking and the nuclear family. Notions of the self may be dissipated in collective provisioning by households consisting of couples, although fractures and conflict also may undermine general agreements about shared space. Both the making of the landscape inside the home and the narration of this making are ongoing projects undertaken within and through the diverse webs of relationship among individuals within a household.

Gender, Modern Design, and Home Consumption

Beset by a range of internal inconsistencies and contradictions, modernism never has been able to expunge completely that which has been constructed as its ‘Other’. Often coded as feminine, notions of ornamentation, decoration, craft, and ephemerality have long been defined in opposition to the modernist project. In this paper we chart a return to the aesthetics of modernism in the retailing, marketing, and consumption of household furniture during the 1990s as a means of extending existing assessments of modernist discourses. Given past associations between modernism and masculinity, we critically evaluate contemporary shifts in home consumption in the context of the gendering of the modern.

The nursery workspace, emotional labour, and contested understandings of commoditised childcare in the contemporary UK

Day nurseries are now the most prevalent form of childcare in the UK after grandparents. Yet, in contrast to the considerable administrative attention these spaces attract in terms of certification and oversight, little is known about nurseries as places to work. We extend existing scholarship through an analysis of care practices and emotional labour in day nurseries based on 400 h of participant observation and interviews with twenty-two care workers at five facilities in the South of England. We argue that although hard, draining work, nursery workers can also experience profound emotional connections with the children in their care. We then extend our analysis to argue that various kinds of boundary-work are undertaken in nursery space to both validate strong feelings (including love) between care workers and children, and maintain conceptual coherence over the emotional entitlements of parents and care workers in the context of emotional bonds between carers and children which blur sharp divisions between ‘kin’ and ‘non-kin’. Finally, we mobilise these findings to challenge dominant theoretical conceptualisations of commoditised care as incapable of providing nourishing emotional bonds, as well as portrayals of day nurseries as a priori ‘non-nurturing’ spaces which circulate widely in the UK popular press.

Moto-mobilities: Geographies of the Motorcycle and Motorcyclists

Abstract This paper draws upon and seeks to extend accounts of systems of automobility through an examination of geographies of the motorcycle and motorcyclist – or what we term ‘moto-mobilities’. We utilize the figure of the motorcycle to raise the importance of analysing alternative mobilities: to consider how they appeal to different travelling dispositions and emotions; how they have been represented; and how they have been produced, marketed and consumed. The paper first reflects upon the experiences and embodiment of the motorcycle-rider; second, evaluates representations of moto-mobility; and finally attends to the materiality of mobility via an examination of the economy of motorcycle qualities.

Software for Qualitative Research: 2. Some Thoughts on ‘Aiding’ Analysis

In this paper we reject accounts which portray computer aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) as neutral and benign. We argue that applying computer software to qualitative projects raises a number of important issues that go to the heart of ethnography. Although we initially work with a distinction between tactile and digital ethnographics, the issues that we raise are not unique to computer-aided analyses. Indeed, we argue that the adoption of computers marks a useful moment in which to think critically about the means and ends of qualitative analysis. In this paper we urge qualitative researchers to avoid both an outright rejection and an unquestioning adoption of computer software packages. Rather, we work towards a ‘crafty’ approach to ethnography where computers are incorporated into the body of research in a critically reflexive and creative manner. We end the paper with some thoughts on the potential of such incorporation.

Software for qualitative research: 1. Prospectus and overview

In recent years there has been growing interest in the use of computers within qualitative geography. In this paper we review the types of software packages that have been adopted and outline some of their distinctive features. We discuss the intellectual and institutional reasons for the interest in the software and highlight the ways in which such reasons have shaped the use made of these packages. We argue that only a contextual account of how packages are adopted, adapted, and used can explain the situation in geography. Furthermore we suggest that the archaeologies underlying the packages—their theoretical presuppositions—are remarkably homogeneous and need to be clearly understood before deciding how the packages might be used. We outline how some of these presuppositions have affected the ways in which the packages have been used, and develop—from our own experiences—some points about informal networks of adoption and institutional contexts. The point of this is to suggest the minimal role played by formal software guides and manuals in choosing whether and how to use a package. The paper outlines the current ‘state of play’ and raises issues of future use to be addressed in a second paper on this theme. Our intention is neither to sell a particular package, nor to say “to do X, use package Y”, because such recommendations are often misleading. Rather, our aim is to provoke discussion about the use of software packages in qualitative geography.

Geographies of production I

© 2007 SAGE Publications