This paper examines images used to market clothing lines by the affordability-centered Swedish food company Eldorado as well as from the luxury fashion brands Prada and Gucci. Through a qualitative socio-semiotic approach, the images are compared and analyzed in relation to the contemporary societal context of a westernized and postmodern consumer culture. At the basis of the analysis is the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu concerning taste and class, as well as writings on postmodernism and class in relation to counter-hegemonic consumerism. Findings suggest that the luxury fashion brands exhibit a distinction of taste tied to affluency, whereas Eldorado can be interpreted as ironizing tropes and clichés seen in such imagery. A discussion is subsequently raised, debating the paradox of inserting counter-cultural values into the marketing of commodified goods.

Ce mémoire traite de l’enseignement de la danse africaine en France et au Canada. Cette recherche a débuté en 2007, lorsque l’auteur a participé à un échange étudiant. À la fin de cette expérience, l’auteur en était arrivé à la conclusion que la danse africaine au Québec était abordée comme un bien de consommation et/ou une production socioculturelle relevant de l’imaginaire. La présente analyse explore les avantages et les limites de l’approche méthodologique adoptée par l’anthropologue (qui est, dans ce cas-ci, une ancienne danseuse classique), et les conditions de la rencontre entre les Africains et les occidentaux par la danse. Tandis qu’il reste à démontrer que les critiques postmodernes de l’art de masse s’appliquent dans ce cas-ci, l’analyse montre ici clairement que l’on trouve dans les cours de danse africaine au Québec une forme de conscience professionnelle. Les critiques de la danse et de d’autres formes de démocratisations artistiques tendent à se confondre dans la peur du discours populaire. L’objectif principal de cette recherche est par conséquent d’établir les limites du fétichisme par rapport à la danse africaine et d’explorer en détail les implications de la « hantise du Troisième Homme » communiquée par la recherche ethnographique et l’analyse anthropologique / This thesis deals with the teaching of African dance in France and in Canada. The research for this thesis began in 2007, when the author took part in a student exchange and ended with a consideration of African dance in Quebec as a consumer good and/or an imaginary sociocultural production. The analysis explores the benefits and the limits of the methodological approach embraced by the anthropologist (who is, in this case, a former dancer with training in classical dance), and the terms of the encounter between Africans and Westerners through dance. While it remains to be shown that the post-modernist critiques of mass art apply to this context, the analysis here points to the presence of a professional consciousness in African dance lessons in Quebec. Critiques of dance and other arts as democratization tend to get lost in the fear of popular discourse. The main objective of this research is therefore to establish the limits of the fetishism associated with African dance and to discuss in further detail the « hantise du Troisième Homme », communicated by ethnographic research and anthropological analysis

Este trabalho partiu da hipótese de que adolescentes cometem ato infracional como decorrência do processo de formação do indivíduo, engendrado na sociedade de consumo. Teve o objetivo de dar voz a esses adolescentes. Ouvilos para transformá-los em agentes de sua própria história. Partiu de concepções críticas de psicologia, de homem e de mundo enfocando a história da sociedade ocidental em relação à possibilidade de formação/constituição do ser humano. A metodologia utilizada foi o estudo de caso. Para tanto coletou informações a partir de várias fontes de evidências, sendo elas: a análise documental sobre as leis que lidam com a questão da infância brasileira e sobre o que foi divulgado pela mídia quando o assunto eram as crianças e adolescentes; registros sobre estatísticas da violência no Brasil e sobre o perfil dos adolescentes que cumpriram uma medida socioeducativa; entrevistas com quatro jovens que cometeram ato infracional na adolescência e observação direta proporcionada por experiência anterior de trabalho com esse público. A dissertação apresentou o fenômeno da prática infracional de adolescentes como consequência da impossibilidade de plena formação do humano na sociedade atual. O fetichismo exercido pelas mercadorias, a influência da indústria cultural e da pseudoformação oferecida pelas escolas, a inexistência de espaços de convivência entre homens livres foram componentes fundamentais para entender a violência efetuada e sofrida pelos jovens. Estes estão impedidos de aparecerem como seres plurais e ao mesmo tempo únicos. / This study originated from the hypothesis that adolescents commit offences due to the process of formation of the individual, inserted in the consuming society. It has had as main objective to give those adolescents a say. To hear them to make them agents of their own history. It stemmed from critical conceptions of psychology, of the man and of the world, focusing on the History of the western society related to the possibility of formation/constitution of the human being. The methodology employed was the case study. Thus, some information has been collected from several sources of evidence, such as: the documental analysis about the laws which deal with the question of the Brazilian childhood and about what has been broadcast by the media when the subject has been children and teenagers, registers about statistics of the violence in Brazil and about the profile of the adolescents who have been submited to a social-educative measure; interviews with four youngsters who commited offences as teenagers and direct observation provided by previous working experience with this group. The dissertation presented the phenomenon of the teenage criminal practice as consequence of the failing in fully forming humans in the present society. The fetiche exerted by products, the influence of the cultural industry and of the pseudoformation offered by schools, the lack of interactive spaces among free men have been the fundamental components to understand the violence commited and undergone by the youth. These are prevented from emerging as plural beings and as well as single ones.

Esta pesquisa procura situar a análise do sistema de crédito na apresentação categorial de O Capital de Karl Marx para, a partir daí, problematizar alguns aspectos da crítica marxiana à sociedade baseada no valor. O primeiro deles diz respeito às dificuldades surgidas na explicação da reprodução ampliada do capital social total com a abstração do Estado no curso de toda análise ali efetuada, rebaixado ao detalhe da condição de faux frais da produção capitalista. Tal rebaixamento é questionado então a partir dos problemas derivados da aceitação acrítica, por parte de Marx, do conceito smithiano de trabalho \"improdutivo\". Com isto, retoma-se a crítica de Rosa Luxemburgo como forma de sugerir uma proposta para a resolução daquelas dificuldades a partir da reinserção do aparato estatal militarizado e das dívidas públicas nacionais, formadas por acumulação de capital fictício, na dinâmica de reprodução permanente dos pressupostos da acumulação primitiva como condição necessária da autoreprodução do valor. Tal inserção, finalmente, permite vislumbrar novos patamares críticos em relação aos supostamente necessários \"benefícios civilizatórios\" da modernização. / This research intents to situate credit system analysis in Karl Marx\'s Capital conceptual presentation and, therefore, discusses some questions about Marxian critical aspects of \"value based society\". First of them concerns difficulties that appears with the abstraction of the State in the total social capital amplified reproduction analysis. Marx would have reduce the State to the condition of faux frais of the capitalistic production in the course of his analysis. In my opinion, such consideration about the role of the State came since the issues from an uncritical acceptation by Marx of the smithian concept of \"unproductive\" labor. Therefore, we recover, necessarily, to the Rosa Luxemburg\'s critics to proposal an answer in face of these troubles inserting military state apparatu\'s and its public national debts. They would have been made up of fictitious capital accumulation, through the permanent reproduction dynamics of the presuppositions of the previous accumulation\'s as a necessary condition of the value\'s self reproduction. This reintroduction, at last, allows discern a new critical horizon about civilizatory \"necessary by suppose\" benefits of the modernization process.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo construir um diálogo teórico entre a alienação do fetichismo da mercadoria, em Marx, e algumas categorias da psicanálise. A noção marxista clássica de ideologia, concebida como o desconhecimento e a distorção da consciência necessariamente produzidos pelas condições efetivas da realidade social, é criticada pelo filósofo esloveno Slavoj iek, ao trazer para o campo da ideologia a noção psicanalítica de fantasia. Entretanto, realizamos uma primeira problematização dessa elaboração do filósofo por dirigir a sua crítica a essa noção de ideologia, remetendo-a ao fetichismo da mercadoria. Mostramos que esse conceito de ideologia a que a sua crítica se dirige se adéqua justamente à noção de ideologia desenvolvida por Marx e Engels nA ideologia alemã, e não ao fetichismo da mercadoria, visto que o fetichismo comporta uma noção mais complexa que não se resume a um mero desconhecimento da realidade e a uma distorção socialmente necessária da consciência. Retornamos a O capital de Marx para mostrar as imbricações da fantasia no fetichismo da mercadoria e para mostrar que a sujeição que atinge os sujeitos sob a alienação fetichista é da ordem do inconsciente. No contexto da relação entre fetichismo da mercadoria e inconsciente, problematizamos também aquilo que denominamos uma generalização a que iek incorre, ao defender a tese de que a alienação fetichista teria se deslocado genericamente do saber para o fazer humano. Dessa forma, concluímos que a formulação marxiana, Não o sabem, mas o fazem, continua atual e exercendo o seu poder ideológico, dependendo das condições sócio-simbólicas em que os sujeitos se inserem e são inseridos. Para compreender o sentido da noção de fantasia no campo da ideologia, empreendemos uma breve apresentação da noção freudiana da fantasia até uma compreensão lacaniana, em sua dimensão de gozo e de objeto a, elaborada por iek. O filósofo realiza uma distinção entre sintoma e fantasia para dizer que a ideologia não se estrutura na forma do primeiro, mas sim da segunda, em que a fantasia ideológica, em sua dimensão real, estrutura a realidade social. Na direção da pista deixada por iek, seguimos rumo às operações lacanianas de alienação e separação para pensar possibilidades do sujeito fazer frente à ideologia. Apresentamos, então, um estudo dessas operações em Lacan, e elaboramos, por nossa própria conta e risco, uma articulação delas com o fetichismo da mercadoria, tentando mostrar as determinações mútuas entre fetichismo e inconsciente. Da mesma forma que a fantasia ideológica e a operação da alienação operam um fechamento imaginário da abertura possibilitada pela separação, essa operação permite uma abertura desejante entre sujeito e Outro, lugar de onde se poderia partir para uma crítica possível à ideologia / This paper aims to build a theoretical dialogue amongst the alienation of commodity fetishism in Marx, and some categories of psychoanalysis. The classical Marxist notion of ideology, conceived as the ignorance and the distortion of consciousness necessarily produced by the actual conditions of social reality, is criticized by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek, in bringing to the field of ideology the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy. However, we perform an initial questioning of his elaboration, for he addresses his critique to this notion of ideology, reporting it to the commodity fetishism. We show that this concept of ideology that his criticism is addressed precisely fits in the notion of ideology developed by Marx and Engels, in The German Ideology, and not in the commodity fetishism, since the fetishism involves a more complex notion that is not summed to a mere ignorance of reality and to a socially necessary distortion of conscious. We return to Marxs Capital to show the imbrications of fantasy in commodity fetishism and to show that the subjection, which reaches the subjects under the fetishist alienation is of the order of the unconscious. In the context of the relationship between commodity fetishism and unconscious, we also problematize what we call a generalization that iek incurs in defending the thesis that fetishist alienation would have generically shifted from the human knowing to the human making. Thus, we conclude that the Marxian formulation, We are not aware of this, nevertheless we do it, is still present and exerting its ideological power, depending on the socio-symbolic conditions in which the subjects insert themselves and are inserted. To understand the meaning of the notion of fantasy in the field of ideology, we undertake a brief presentation of the Freudian notion of fantasy to a Lacanian understanding, in its dimension of enjoyment and the object little-a, elaborated by iek. The philosopher makes a distinction between symptom and fantasy to say that ideology is structured not in the form of the former, but of the latter, in which the ideological fantasy, in its real dimension, structures the social reality. Towards the clue left by iek, we turn to the Lacanian operations of alienation and separation to think of possibilities to the subject to cope with ideology. Then we present a study of these operations in Lacan, and prepare at our own risk, an articulation of these psychic operations with commodity fetishism, trying to show the mutual determinations between fetishism and unconscious. Just as the ideological fantasy and the operation of alienation carry out an imaginary closure of the opening made possible by the separation, this operation allows a desiring gap between subject and Other, a place from which one could depart for a possible critique of ideology

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:38:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Manoel Paulo Taveira Junior.pdf: 497359 bytes, checksum: 935c16d9d7d774677217ff4865159f98 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-19 / This work aims to investigate the origins and effects of passion through a case study. It is a study of the psychoanalytic clinic that aims to articulate metapsychological concepts of S. Freud's work taking as spine the history of the subject in question. The first chapter is dedicated to discuss the concepts of object-choice and fetishism. The second chapter is devoted to investigate and discuss the concept of the Oedipus complex, ideal Self, and the experience of illusion inherent passions. The third chapter discusses the concepts of mourning and melancholia. Clinical material are presented in each chapter to illustrate the chosen metapsychological concepts and indicate vividly the suffering experienced by the subject of the case, as well as his ability to "cure" / Este trabalho tem a finalidade de investigar as origens e os efeitos da paixão através de um estudo de caso. É um estudo sobre a clínica psicanalítica que objetiva a articulação de conceitos metapsicológicos da obra S. Freud tomando como coluna vertebral parte da história do sujeito em questão. O primeiro capítulo dedica-se a discutir os conceitos de escolha objetal e fetichismo. O segundo capítulo dedica-se a investigar e discutir o conceito de complexo de Édipo, ideal do Eu e a ilusão inerente às paixões. O terceiro capítulo aborda os conceitos de luto e melancolia. Em cada capítulo são apresentados materiais clínicos com a finalidade de ilustrar os conceitos metapsicológicos escolhidos e indicar com vivacidade o sofrimento experienciado pelo sujeito do caso, bem como suas possibilidades de cura

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:14:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sheila Canevacci Ribeiro.pdf: 36581540 bytes, checksum: 4457fba39baff42f7ba0d86f7a0f3931 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-26 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo / Starting off from the experience crossed by digital culture, a mixture of apparently incongruent communicational elements has been proliferating in the metropolis. This is a phenomenon of communication named here as absurd congruence (AC) for conjugating odd occurrences that, being normalized and legitimized in contemporaneity, collaborate within themselves without, nevertheless, causing strangeness. The absurd congruencies (ACs) break out in unexpected and interspaced situations and locations in the communicational metropolis, fruit of the tension between communication, culture and consumption, hypertexting the verbalimage imbrications so very much accordingly to the environment that the strangeness of what they gather is not noticed. To identify the absurd congruencies , it is necessary to practice a methodology guided by a flâneur itinerancy, both in the city and online life, navigating through an interdisciplinary biographical review (Muniz Sodré), articulating four theoretical axes: a) mediabody theory (Helena Katz e Christine Greiner); b) methodological fetishism (Massimo Canevacci); c) cyber culture studies (Mcluhan, Lemos, Shirky); and d) post-colonial studies of communication (Souza Santos, Bhabha. Fanon). Treating absurd congruencies as glocal samplings promoted by the on/ offline transcodification, the objective of this research is to propose its proliferation as a cognitive symptom of the indexed subjects we are now. The hypothesis proposes AC as a communicational event of expanded authorship in diverse materializations, a mediabody of the communicational metropolis that, as it manifests itself, reveals values already present in the very communication / Um mix de elementos comunicacionais aparentemente incongruentes vem proliferando na metrópole, a partir da vivência atravessada pela cultura digital. Trata-se de um fenômeno da comunicação aqui nomeado de congruência absurda (CA) por conjugar ocorrências estranhas que coadjuvam normalizadas e legitimadas na contemporaneidade sem, no entanto, causar estranhamento. As congruências absurdas (CA) irrompem em situações e locais imprevistos e intersticiais na metrópole comunicacional, fruto da tensão entre comunicação, cultura e consumo, hipertextualizando a imbricação verbal-imagens de forma tão acordada com o ambiente, que a estranheza daquilo que reúne não é percebida. Para identificar as congruências absurdas devese praticar uma metodologia guiada por uma itinerância flâneur , tanto pela cidade quanto pela vida on line, navegando por uma revisão bibliográfica indisciplinar (Muniz Sodré), articulando quatro eixos teóricos: a) teoria corpomídia (segundo Helena Katz e Christine Greiner); b) fetichismo metodológico (Massimo Canevacci); c) estudos da cibercultura (McLuhan; Lemos; Shirky; e d) estudos póscoloniais da comunicação (Souza Santos; Bhabha; Fanon. Tratando as congruências absurdas como sampleamentos glocais, promovidos pela transcodificação on-off line, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo propor a sua proliferação como um sintoma cognitivo dos sujeitos indexados que agora somos. A hipótese propõe a CA enquanto evento comunicacional de autoria expandida em materializações diversas, um corpomídia da metrópole comunicacional que, ao se manifestar, revela valores já presentes na comunicação

This thesis seeks to trace domination theory back to the influential work done by Marx on commodity fetishism. Marx's work proves to be an original account of domination that explains how the dominated many accept the rule of the privileged few. The theory of commodity fetishism develops the idea that individuals come to adopt beliefs that bolster and reproduce the status quo of capitalism. For Marx, the way that individuals experience capitalism is different from the way that it actually works because, in fact, lived experience is actually false. Oppression, inequality and exploitation are thus hidden and the main source of conflict between the oppressed many and the privileged few is obscured. I seek to develop this insight of Marx's into a more comprehensive account of how dominating capitalism self maintains. Lukács' theory of reification explains how capitalism has become all-embracing because capitalism has developed its own type of rationality. This specific rationality shapes thought, which in turn, generates false beliefs that favour the continuation of the status quo. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that capitalism extends its influence by means of its deep involvement in modern culture. Today, culture has become an massive industry which inculcates the logic and principles of capitalism into individuals. For these theorists, capitalism has penetrated all areas of life; experience, knowledge and thought have become extensions of capitalism itself. Marx, Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno give accounts of how false beliefs are put into practice. Hence the importance of the work of Bourdieu. Bourdieu's theory of distinction describes how the status quo in capitalism is maintained by the behaviour of individuals through their daily acts of consumption. I argue that the consumption of commodities reproduces the status quo in two ways: firstly, establishing an upper-class which takes the lead in patterns of consumption, and, secondly, by creating a middle class that follows its example. Finally, I relate Bourdieu's insights to the theories of Marx, Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno and Bourdieu in order to arrive at a more inclusive account of how.

電影《購物狂的異想世界》中麗貝卡的消費情境揭示當代消費者追求時尚以表達自我認同的普遍現象。不同於社會學傳統將時尚現象貶抑為脫序行為的輕視，本研究欲探討消費社會中的時尚實作，再思「社會秩序如何可能」的古典問題。本研究基於Benjamin對時尚的現代性考察，假設新社會秩序的理論模型為「消費社會=時尚+拜物教性質」。據此假說，本研究主張兩大論點：首先，消費社會中的時尚實作是一種社會模控機制，具有穩定社會秩序的功能。其次，有別於拜物教的常識與科學認識，物神實際上扮演著社會秩序的中介角色。 本研究的具體分析目標有三：第一，釐清Simmel、Bourdieu、Bauman時尚社會學的理論意涵以便確立分析框架，並進而指出三者錯失的社會場景。第二，將時尚社會學常用的「階級性」和「個體性」這兩個分析概念操作化，並從社會歷史到個人心理的經驗現象層面漸次闡明消費社會中「拚行頭」和「風格穿搭」的時尚實作。第三，重新梳理「原始社會拜物教」、「商品拜物教」與「精神分析戀物癖」的概念歷史，並將此概念組應用到時尚現象中進行拜物教性質的詮釋。承上述，研究結果發現，消費社會的秩序已脫離社會契約論與社會互動論等觀點，改以物神誘惑時尚主體的新形式進行社會整合。換句話說，消費者在時尚遊戲中同時扮演主人與奴隸的矛盾角色；不過，本研究最終又提問拜物教作為政治策略的可能性，以便為將來的研究提供方向。 / In the film Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca is addicted to the overconsumption of fashionable clothes and shoes. Her singular case reveals an universal phenomenon of the consumer society in which consumers pursue fashion as an expression of self-identity. In counter to the conventional sociological dismissal of fashion to individual anomic behaviors, this thesis seeks to explore the logic of practice of fashion in the consumer society with an aim to rethink the classical question of social order. After being initiated into Benjamin's enchanting world of fashion, the thesis hypothesizes a theoretical model of the new social order which may be formulated as "Consumer society = Fashion + Property of Fetishism". Based on this hypothesis, the thesis puts forward two lines of arguments. Above all, practices of fashion in the consumer society are an integral part of cybernetic control in the maintenance of social order. Subsequently, the notion of fetish should be severed from conceptions of substance or subject prevalent in commonsense as well as scientific understanding, and reconceived as playing a medating role in the structuring and restructuring of society. The thesis is organized around three objects of analysis. First,we clarify dominant sociological accounts of fashion in the works of Simmel, Bourdieu and Bauman to outline an analytical framework whilst questioning the social-historical scenes those theoretical perspectives have possibly missed. Second, we operationalize the analytical notions of "social class" and "individuality" within social settings of fashion known as "dress to compete" and "dress in style", and then expound these widespread empirical phenomena of fashion by means of social history as well as individual psychology. Third, we review the conceptual development of "primitive fetishism ", "commodity fetishism" and "sexual fetishism" in relevant intellectual histories, and then apply the conceptual triad to the reinterpretation of fashion as a social phenomenon imbued with the practical property of fetishism. As a result, the thesis finds that the question of order in the consumer society is radically different from what the proponents of social contract and symbolic interaction have usually conceived. Instead, contemporary society mobilizes various mechanisms of fetishism to seduce consumer subjects so that they can actively contribute to social integration. In other words, a consumer is both master and slave in the game of fashion; nevertheless, this thesis ponders on the final possibility of fetishism as a political strategy, a heuristic question which might lead to future research.

This dissertation addresses the phenomenon of 'radical commodities'-commercial products which advance an oppositional politics. Examples of such include the products of Rage Against The Machine, a 'revolutionary' rock band; Michael Moore, a best-selling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker; Naomi Klein, a journalist and author of the international bestseller No Logo; The Body Shop, a multinational manufacturer and retailer of 'natural' cosmetics and toiletries; Freitag, a company which manufactures bags, wallets and other fashionable accessories from recycled materials, and; the Adbusters Media Foundation, publisher of Adbusters magazine and producer of Blackspot shoes. Radical commodities are fundamentally paradoxical objects whose apparent ethic would appear to be at odds with the fact that they are commodities. This dissertation asks: can a commodity-object legitimately serve as a vehicle for social and political critique? It is reasoned that the problem of radical commodities is principally structural. Marx's seminal writings on the commodity accordingly represent the logical point of departure. The Marxian analysis illuminates not only the commodity-structure, but also the political problematic which emerges from that structure-for Marx, the commodity is a mechanism of exploitation. From an orthodox Marxist perspective, the idea of a radical commodity would therefore be most contradictory, or indeed impossible. It is argued, however, that the Marxian analysis is inconclusive. This dissertation traces a genealogy of analyses of the commodity, which variously advance or diverge from the orthodox Marxist position. From a perspective of the consumption of commodity-objects, the radical commodity would appear to be possible. Yet, the relationship between the commodity-structure and the capitalist ideology runs deep. The question of the radical commodity is therefore markedly more complex than it might initially appear. With regard to the ideological consequence of the commodity-structure, however, certain streams of post-Marxist analysis are themselves problematic, for they ultimately short-circuit historical critique and destabilise the very possibility of politics. In contrast, this dissertation seeks to reaffirm a place for politics and, in so doing, to establish the theoretical possibility of radical commodities. To contend that the idea of a radical commodity is not fundamentally contradictory, however, says nothing of the political potency of such objects. These are undoubtedly complex objects, whose peculiarities cannot be ascertained by abstract theorisation alone. For this reason, this dissertation also employs empirical analyses of a number of radical commodities. In sum, it is argued that the sphere of commodities should be admitted as a possible site for the expression or implementation of a radical politics, and thus that radical commodities should be understood as a legitimate vehicle for social and political critique, but that such objects are by no means free from contradiction, and that the political efficacy of these products is anything but guaranteed.