https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp <p>Conjunctions is a peer-reviewed academic journal that seeks to create an international and transdisciplinary forum for the investigation of user-generated cultural production, user-driven cultural participation and citizen involvement across a variety of social fields, contexts and practices, e.g. urban spaces, (digital) media, social media platforms, education and teaching, the cultural sector and creative industries, aesthetic productions and museums, health institutions, activism and design.</p> <p>The overall focus of the journal is to explore the socially transformative and democratic potential of cultural participation processes, to qualify the academic understanding of what ‘participation’ is and what it involves, and to discuss the complex relations created between user-generated processes and established institutions and discourses. <br />We take an interest in critical analyses of participatory practices, rhetoric and involvement strategies, in affirmative investigations of participation, in explorations of explicit or conscious and implicit or non-conscious forms of participation.</p> <p>Submitted articles can be focused on theoretical development or on empirical analysis (of e.g. case studies). We also welcome work that use innovative or creative methods as well as more traditional methods.</p> <p>The journal invites submissions from a variety of disciplinary fields such as media and communication studies, cultural studies, interaction and participatory design, cultural geography, education, aesthetics, science and technology studies, health care, health communication, information science, sociology, anthropology, development studies and gender studies.</p> <p>The journal is published twice every year.</p> en-US <p>Copyright (c)): Author</p> <p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" rel="license"><img src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/4.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a></p> <p>This work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> lyn@ruc.dk (Louise Yung Nielsen) lyn@ruc.dk (Louise Yung Nielsen) Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:53:04 +0200 OJS 3.3.0.13 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147208 <p>In this special issue, our “Norms and Storms” framing enables us to attend both to the (explicit or implied) rules that govern how taking part plays out and the unintended consequences of participation. This special issue emerges in a context of the proliferation and popularity of participatory approaches. “Co-production” and “public engagement,” for instance, are two institutionalized initiatives that have gained prominence in the UK and across Europe in recent years. Though prevalent in development discourses for decades (Leal, 2010), participation has been taken up with vigor post-2009 financial crisis, under austerity, with nation-states shoring up inadequate resources by “consulting,” engaging, and fostering imaginaries of outsourced citizenship. Where states fail to acknowledge the implications of cuts, a gap appears, into which step all manner of institutions. Schools run feeding programs; artists pitch for activities to service plummeting mental health; city managers invite playful public participation in planning sessions about urban regeneration; and patients are invited to participate in their general practice to give the impression of better healthcare. These kinds of initiatives are certainly better than nothing, but there’s not always a full sense of how arts and culture are replicating the projects of neoliberalism and furthering forms of liberal subjecthood.</p> <p>The tensions evident in our contributions emerge at the particular conjuncture of neoliberalism in its desire to co-opt agency to ultimately achieve assimilation and control (Bala, 2018; Gamso, 2022; Harvie, 2013; Leal, 2010; Miessen, 2011). This tension is visible at several levels – in cities, in institutions, and in artistic practice. Each of these contexts presents different “cultures of participation” (Eriksson et al., 2020), invited, but seemingly pre-imagined.</p> Aylwyn Walsh, Alice Borchi Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147208 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147211 <p>Participatory arts can invite stormy and violent forms of participation when they are commissioned for sites where frustration, territorial control and pre-emptive self-defense involve practices of accepted street codes by those living within racialized, febrile territories. Through the case study of Aroma Home, a participatory art gardening project, in Paris’s northern peripheries, I analyze instances of affective, symbolic, performative and territorial violence as non-normative political acts of participation. Examining the underlying contexts and logics that led to these incidents, I argue that the most insidious act of violence in the project was the creation of our invasive, extractive garden on a hitherto unclaimed and unidentified patch of ‘free’ public ground. In creating a new identity for this wasteland and defining its use, we effectively limited, and implicitly prescribed, modes of participation that were culturally alien to those we most wanted to involve.</p> Sarah Harper Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147211 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147215 <p>The paper addresses the political and cultural problem underpinning mainstream narratives on homelessness. The absence of data, in conjunction with the misconceptions associated with homelessness, translate into the criminalization and stigmatization of homelessness, both at the local level and in fragmented policies at national and international levels. Section one presents an overview of homelessness as a cultural and political problem; section two then introduces the Italian situation and Bologna as a case study. After a presentation of the method followed in section three, sections four and five describe and then discuss two projects initiated by a political collective in the city of Bologna that directly involve homeless people in the deconstruction of imageries and narratives around homelessness. Finally, section six draws conclusions about the need to generate new narratives capable of accounting for the intersectional and complex nature of the phenomenon of homelessness: new narratives capable of restoring to the homeless their articulate human identity.</p> Francesca Sabatini Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147215 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147216 <p>Drama facilitation takes place in “social world” spacetimes that are governed by hegemonic norms. These are created by a complex interplay of global historical processes, the specifics of local factors in the present, and the experience of participants. In Merseyside, UK, these processes create intersectional oppression, which, despite a rhetoric of “inclusion,” renders engagement in creative work either uncomfortable or unobtainable for diasporic and working-class communities in the area. These communities also continue to disproportionately experience various forms of violence. Our response is a trauma-informed “conscientization through the body,” using an eclectic mix of emergent methodologies that intentionally co-create emancipatory spacetimes.</p> Aidan Jolly, Wendy O'Connor, Cristina Justino do Nascimento Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147216 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147218 <p>In 2019 artist Layla Khoo created and installed a participatory artwork at Nunnington Hall, a property owned by the National Trust, UK. The artwork, named Change in Attitudes, was a response to the taxidermy collection of hunting trophies displayed on site, all shot and collected by the last owner of the house, Colonel Ronald Fife. The work sought to encourage visitors to consider their thoughts on this difficult part of the collection, both in its historical context and in light of current societal norms, by inviting them to participate with the artwork through choice-making. This case study first analyzes the impact of this work on visitor engagement at the site, both in the participation methods intended by the artist and in the unexpected participation methods employed by the visitors as the installation evolved. The questions raised by this case study are then considered, as well as the research currently under way which seeks to answer them.</p> Layla Khoo Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147218 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147265 <p>‘Cosplay’ is the abbreviation of ‘costume’ and ‘play.’ The practice of cosplay is both an artistic medium of craft and performance and a lively subcultural activity. Consequently, ‘cosplayer’ refers to someone who participates in the craft and performance of cosplay. Many fan and cosplay scholars have provided unique definitions of the craft; for example, Joel Gn defines cosplay as “a performance art in which the participant masquerades as a character from a selected film, television series, or comic book” (Gn 2011, p.583). Gn here presents a well-rounded definition of the term that resonates with earlier work by McCormick (1999) as well as more recent work by Lamerichs (2018) and Winge (2019). Drawing on Gn, I define cosplay as the act in which fans dress and perform as characters from popular media (namely, from film/television/games/comics), but I place more emphasis on the performative aspects of cosplay, which separates the practice from fancy dress. This distinction, furthermore, allows for much more diversity on the part of the cosplayer in terms of subject matter and creative outlet.</p> <p>The findings presented in this article present a portion of my thesis, “ Cosplay: Community, hierarchy, and the Acafan methodology” (Skentelbery 2023), completed at Keele University on March 15, 2023. My research, influenced by the work of Bainbridge and Norris (2009, 2013), Gn (2011) and King (2013, 2016), began optimistically. Initial data collected suggested that cosplay subcultures regularly create storms and disrupt the gendered norms of modern Western society by creating transformative spaces at fan conventions. My research, however, revealed that something much more complicated was occurring. My research findings, which combined auto-ethnographic participation and interviews, drew on a broad swathe of traditional audience scholarship, and post-feminist criticism. These data sets and theoretical frameworks suggested that there were in fact complexities and contradictions that exist within cosplay communities, and that cosplayer also replicated gendered and sexual norms. In this article, cosplays of DC Comics’ iconic cat burglar Catwoman are the focal case study. Through the case study, in relation to Catwoman’s long history across comics, film, and games, I examine how cosplayers not only create storms, but also replicate norms and gender power imbalances.</p> Daniel Skentelbery Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147265 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147217 <p>AB: Thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with me, Leila. The first thing I’d like to discuss with you is around the norms of participation – what we might consider the implicit rules of participation in the context of culture.</p> <p><br>LJ: There are so many different meanings of participation, in so many different contexts, that it’s quite hard to say whose norms or rules we are talking about. In my research I have argued that the word risks becoming meaningless because of its ubiquitous use (Jancovich, 2015). But in terms of political science theories, which is what I draw from, participation is about having the power to influence change (Bevir and Rhodes 2010). So participation should be about breaking norms, not reinforcing them.</p> <p><br>But of course that’s not the definition that’s commonly used in the cultural sector, where “participation” often means “taking part” in something that’s being created for you, rather than shaping it (DCMS 2023). So in the cultural sector it is often about “fitting in” to social norms. This of course varies across the sector: cultural participation can also be about, as Nora Sternfeld (2013) said, “having the ability to change the rules of the game.” So even that question – “What are the norms?” – it depends for whom.</p> <p><br>For participatory artists, their norm might be to direct the experience and retain authorship, and the participants might be their props, whereas for the socially engaged or community artist, the norm might be about the participants having agency and some control over the content itself. But in both cases, the norm is to start with artists, who then reach out to find participants to engage with. What if the new norm was to fund communities to decide what kind of cultural offer they want?</p> Leila Jancovich, Alice Borchi Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/article/view/147217 Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200