A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism
A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism

Author: Peter Doran

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-14

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1317743415

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The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being. This book draws together lively debates from the new economics of transition, commons and well-being, consumerism, and the emerging role of mindfulness in popular culture. Engaged Buddhist practices and teachings correspond closely to insights in contemporary political philosophical investigations into the nature of power, notably by Michel Foucault. The 'attention economy' can be understood as a new arena of struggle in our age of neoliberal governmentality; as the forces of enclosure – having colonized forests, land and the bodies of workers – are now extended to the realm of our minds and subjectivity. This poses questions about the recovery of the 'mindful commons': the practices we must cultivate to reclaim our attention, time and lives from the forces of capitalization. This is a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental philosophy, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, well-being and new economics, political economy, environmental politics, the commons and law, as well as Buddhist theory and philosophy.

Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil
Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil

Author: Kathryn Lawson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-02-22

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1350344478

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Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil were two of the most compelling political thinkers of the 20th century who, despite having similar life-experiences, developed radically distinct political philosophies. This unique dialogue between the writings of Arendt and Weil highlights Arendt's secular humanism, her emphasis on heroic action, and her rejection of the moral approach to politics, contrasted starkly with Weil's religious approach, her faith in the power of divine Goodness, and her other-centric ethic of suffering and affliction. The writings here respect the profound differences between Arendt and Weil whilst pulling out the shared preoccupations of power, violence, freedom, resistance, responsibility, attention, aesthetics, and vulnerability. Without shying away from exploring the more difficult concepts in these philosophers' works, Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil also aims to pull out the relevance of their writings for contemporary issues.

Peace Love Yoga
Peace Love Yoga

Author: Andrea R. Jain

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-28

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0190888652

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Engaging with the growing popular and academic interest in the "spiritual but not religious," Andrea R. Jain explores the connections between the practices of global spirituality and aspects of neoliberal capitalism in Peace Love Yoga. "Personal growth," "self-care," and "transformation" are all tropes in the narrative of the spiritual identity Jain is concerned with. This "spirituality" is usually depicted as firmly countercultural: the term "alternative" (alternative health, alternative medicine, alternative spiritualities) is omnipresent. To the contrary, Jain argues, spiritual commodities, entrepreneurs, and consumers are quite mainstream and sometimes even conservative and nationalistic. Ranging from the transnational to the economic to the activist, Jain refuses the single narrative focus of most works on the SBNR; human phenomena that can be analyzed through a single lens or narrative are few and far between, and existing research in this area too often yields a suspiciously tidy story. The heart of the book includes sophisticated analyses of: two politically divergent but equally entrepreneurial and global-capitalist yoga gurus; "athleisure apparel" corporations, such as lululemon, that successfully market consumer goods as a purchased commitment to social justice; and therapeutically-focused applications of spirituality that concentrate on healing the broken person rather than undermining the system that broke that person in the first place. Many spiritual commodities, corporations, and entrepreneurs, Jain suggests, do actually acknowledge the problems of neoliberal capitalism and in fact subvert them; but they subvert them through mere gestures. From provocative taglines printed across t-shirts or packaging to calls for "conscious capitalism," commodification serves as a strategy through which subversion itself is colonized.

The Attention Economy
The Attention Economy

Author: Claudio Celis Bueno

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-11-16

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1783488255

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The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx’s theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.

Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures
Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures

Author: Naomi Smith

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2024-07-03

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 180455586X

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Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures brings together scholars examining the various ways and spaces in which wellness is constructed and practices within various sociological sub-disciplines across and in related fields including anthropology, cultural studies, and internet studies.

Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness
Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness

Author: Steven Stanley

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-20

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 3319765388

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This handbook explores the multifaceted ethical dimensions of mindfulness, from early Buddhist sources to present-day Western interpretations of mindfulness. It takes a modern ethical approach to the study of mindfulness, and traces contemporary mindfulness practice from solitary journey to the global whole. Noted practitioners, teachers, scholars, and other professionals lend diverse perspectives to the debate over the moral content of mindfulness and its status as religious, secular, or post-secular practice. Chapters offer new views on the roots of mindfulness in Buddhist moral teachings, ethical mindfulness in interpersonal relationships, and the necessity of ethics in mindfulness-based education and therapy. Chapters also discuss current debates concerning the ethics of mindfulness across the applied fields of education and pedagogy, business, economics, and the environment. Topics featured in this handbook include: · Mindfulness as the true foundation of a naturally ethical life. · Mindfulness and its impact on emotional life, interpersonal relationships, and forgiveness. · How Buddhist ethics informs spiritual practice across the three main vehicles (yanas) of Buddhism and its relation to mindfulness. · “McMindfulness”, or the mass marketization and commodification of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). · How an ethic of interdependence formed by Buddhist principles and mindfulness practices can help address the environmental crisis. The Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in psychology, complementary and alternative medicine, and social work as well as occupational and rehabilitation therapy, nursing, philosophy, business management, and teachers of Buddhism and meditation.

Biopolitical Governance
Biopolitical Governance

Author: Hannah Richter

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1786602725

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For years critical theorists and Foucauldian biopolitical theorists have argued against the Aristotelian idea that life and politics inhabit two separate domains. In the context of receding social security systems and increasing economic inequality, within contemporary liberal democracies, life is necessarily political. This collection brings together contributions from both established scholars and researchers working at the forefront of biopolitical theory, gendered and sexualised governance and the politics of race and migration, to better understand the central lines along which the body of the governed is produced, controlled or excluded.

Disrupting White Mindfulness
Disrupting White Mindfulness

Author: Cathy-Mae Karelse

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2023-05-23

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1526162059

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Disrupting White Mindfulness offers a timely commentary on the dominant narratives that shape the mindfulness industry - whiteness, postracialism and neoliberalism. Its positioning as ‘apolitical’ forges institutions that fit comfortably into increasingly divided societies. The race-gender profile of these institutions reveals a White, middle-class profile of decision-makers, educators and staff that is mirrored in its audiences. Mechanisms that recycle the industry’s whiteness include corporatist pedagogies, edicts of authority, disengagement with difference and inappropriate uses of mindfulness that distance People of the Global Majority. A growing emergent movement focused on a justice-infused mindfulness and liberatory wellbeing decolonises mindfulness and de-centres whiteness. Its premise in indigenous, global South, queer knowledges leverages difference to produce multiple solutions focused on liberation. There is room for White Mindfulness to change.

The Politics of Consumption
The Politics of Consumption

Author: Martin Daunton

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2001-06-01

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1847881106

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Objects and commodities have frequently been studied to assess their position within consumer - or material - culture, but all too rarely have scholars examined the politics that lie behind that culture. This book fills the gap and explores the political and state structures that have shaped the consumer and the nature of his or her consumption. From medieval sumptuary laws to recent debates in governments about consumer protection, consumption has always been seen as a highly political act that must be regulated, directed or organized according to the political agendas of various groups. An internationally renowned group of experts looks at the emergence of the rational consuming individual in modern economic thought, the moral and ideological values consumers have attached to their relationships with commodities, and how the practices and theories of consumer citizenship have developed alongside and within the expanding state. How does consumer identity become available to people and how do they use it? How is consumption negotiated in a dictatorship? Are material politics about state politics, consumer politics, or the relationship between these and consumer practices?From the specifics of the politics of consumption in the French Revolution - what was the status of rum? How complicated did a vinegar recipe have to be before the resultant product qualified as 'luxury'? - to the highly contentious twentieth-century debates over American political economy, this original book traces the relationships among political cultures, consumers and citizenship from the eighteenth century to the present.

Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles
Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles

Author: Tendai Chitewere

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-09

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1317682483

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Sustainable communities raise questions about the compatibility of capitalism and environmentalism and how we can green our way of life in a capitalist economy that values short-term production and consumption over long-term conservation and simple living. If capitalism and its drive towards consumption has produced social and environmental degradation, is it the best medium to identify solutions? Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles examines one ecovillage as it attempts to create a sense of community while reducing its impact on the natural environment. Through extensive participant observation, the book demonstrates how ecovillages are immersed within a larger discourse of class, race, and lifestyle choices, highlighting the inseparability of environmental sustainability and social justice. Sustainable communities are confronted by the contradictions of green consumption and must address social inequality or risk focusing inward on personal green consumerism, creating mere green havens for the few who can afford to live in them. This book, cautious of redirecting environmentalist efforts away from structural solutions and onto personal environmentalism, offers a critical perspective on the challenges of an emerging green lifestyle. This book offers a critical perspective on the direction of US environmentalism and contributes to debates in environmental studies, anthropology, and urban planning.