@article{nokey,

title = {Fatalist Luxuries: Of Inequality, Wasting and Anti-Work Ethic in India},

author = {Tereza Kuldova},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

journal = {Cultural Politics},

volume = {12},

issue = {1},

pages = {110-129},

abstract = {This article, grounded in long-term ethnographic research among producers of contemporary luxurious embroideries and fashions in Lucknow, a North Indian city famous for its golden age as a powerful cultural center of opulence and excess, shows how anthropological knowledge can enrich current critical discussions of luxury and inequality. Since the 1990s, anthropology has seen a boom in consumption and material culture studies coterminous with the rise of identity politics and its celebration of diversity. In anthropological theory, as well, linking consumption to identity has stolen the limelight. In the process, questions of production, inequality, and reproduction of social structures have been overshadowed. Critical reappraisal of luxury in anthropological theory can paradoxically show us a way out of this identity trap, since luxury, unlike other consumer goods, demands that we think about inequality. Luxury also forces us to think beyond luxury brands, goods, and commodified experiences, pushing us toward more fundamental questions about what constitutes a good life, morality, and social order. The ethnographic case presented here, which reveals how structural violence can go hand-in-hand with paradoxical luxuries facilitated by fatalist attitudes, points to what such an anthropology of luxury might look like. In a village near Lucknow, women embroider luxury pieces for fashion ramps and celebrities, while being fed meritocratic dreams of individual progress and success by fashion designers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who try to convince them to work ever harder in the name of empowerment. But the women laugh at luxury goods, designers, and middle-class activists and, instead, insist on an antiwork ethic and a valorization of leisure—on wasting time over working; they prefer to “luxuriate” rather than indulge in luxury goods. However, this perception of luxury is connected to hierarchical inequality and a sense of social fatalism that has been reinvigorated through new experiences with competitive inequality, neoliberal pollution, and the false promises of meritocracy.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nokey,

title = {Linen, Silver, Slaves, and Coffee: A Spatial Approach to Central Europe’s Entanglements with the Atlantic Eco­nomy},

author = {Klaus Weber},

year  = {2015},

date = {2015-01-01},

urldate = {2015-01-01},

journal = {Culture & History Digital Journal},

volume = {4},

issue = {2},

abstract = {In German scholarship of the post-war period, the category of space was regarded as discredited, because of its abuse during the Nazi period. This applies in particular to the 1970s and 80s, when novel approaches in social and economic history were developed. Research on proto-industrialisation, broadly examining its internal structures, did not take into account the export orientation of Central Europe’s early modern commodity production. At the same time, the expanding research on Europe’s Atlantic empires, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, did hardly take notice of the manufactures from the Holy Roman Empire, distributed all around the Atlantic basin. This paper examines those conditions favouring German proto-industries which are relevant for a ‘spatial approach’ to the phenomenon. It also covers the late medieval beginnings of this process, in order to demonstrate the continuity of Central Europe’s entanglement with the Atlantic world. The paper further emphasises that any future research using spatial categories must be aware of the ideological contamination of the German term ‘Raum’ during the 19th and 20th century. The interlace of economic and social history with historiography demands a compilation from current and older research literature, some of it on different regions and subjects.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nokey,

title = {Fatalist Luxuries: Of Inequality, Wasting and Anti-Work Ethic in India},

author = {Tereza Kuldova},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

journal = {Cultural Politics},

volume = {12},

issue = {1},

pages = {110-129},

abstract = {This article, grounded in long-term ethnographic research among producers of contemporary luxurious embroideries and fashions in Lucknow, a North Indian city famous for its golden age as a powerful cultural center of opulence and excess, shows how anthropological knowledge can enrich current critical discussions of luxury and inequality. Since the 1990s, anthropology has seen a boom in consumption and material culture studies coterminous with the rise of identity politics and its celebration of diversity. In anthropological theory, as well, linking consumption to identity has stolen the limelight. In the process, questions of production, inequality, and reproduction of social structures have been overshadowed. Critical reappraisal of luxury in anthropological theory can paradoxically show us a way out of this identity trap, since luxury, unlike other consumer goods, demands that we think about inequality. Luxury also forces us to think beyond luxury brands, goods, and commodified experiences, pushing us toward more fundamental questions about what constitutes a good life, morality, and social order. The ethnographic case presented here, which reveals how structural violence can go hand-in-hand with paradoxical luxuries facilitated by fatalist attitudes, points to what such an anthropology of luxury might look like. In a village near Lucknow, women embroider luxury pieces for fashion ramps and celebrities, while being fed meritocratic dreams of individual progress and success by fashion designers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who try to convince them to work ever harder in the name of empowerment. But the women laugh at luxury goods, designers, and middle-class activists and, instead, insist on an antiwork ethic and a valorization of leisure—on wasting time over working; they prefer to “luxuriate” rather than indulge in luxury goods. However, this perception of luxury is connected to hierarchical inequality and a sense of social fatalism that has been reinvigorated through new experiences with competitive inequality, neoliberal pollution, and the false promises of meritocracy.},

keywords = {contemporary, ethnography, india, qualitative research, textile industry, work ethics},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nokey,

title = {Linen, Silver, Slaves, and Coffee: A Spatial Approach to Central Europe’s Entanglements with the Atlantic Eco­nomy},

author = {Klaus Weber},

year  = {2015},

date = {2015-01-01},

urldate = {2015-01-01},

journal = {Culture & History Digital Journal},

volume = {4},

issue = {2},

abstract = {In German scholarship of the post-war period, the category of space was regarded as discredited, because of its abuse during the Nazi period. This applies in particular to the 1970s and 80s, when novel approaches in social and economic history were developed. Research on proto-industrialisation, broadly examining its internal structures, did not take into account the export orientation of Central Europe’s early modern commodity production. At the same time, the expanding research on Europe’s Atlantic empires, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, did hardly take notice of the manufactures from the Holy Roman Empire, distributed all around the Atlantic basin. This paper examines those conditions favouring German proto-industries which are relevant for a ‘spatial approach’ to the phenomenon. It also covers the late medieval beginnings of this process, in order to demonstrate the continuity of Central Europe’s entanglement with the Atlantic world. The paper further emphasises that any future research using spatial categories must be aware of the ideological contamination of the German term ‘Raum’ during the 19th and 20th century. The interlace of economic and social history with historiography demands a compilation from current and older research literature, some of it on different regions and subjects.},

keywords = {atlanic, central and eastern europe, commodity chains, slavery, spatial history, textile industry},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}