Conferences as Speaker

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 19:13:58 +0300

21 September 2023: “The Incandescent Halo of Sin. Perishable sainthood in the flesh, in the now; against work, against duration” in Bataille Now: A transdisciplinary conference on the contemporary application of Georges Bataille’s thought, French Institute of Athens, Greece
16 October 2019: “Contra-Positivism: Reflecting and Expanding on Post Qualitative Research.” in 4th World Conference on Qualitative Research, Lusófona University, Portugal
25 July 2019: “Zombie Colony: The Heteronomy of the Greek State & The Datura of Cultural Capital” in Theorising Zombiism Conference, University College Dublin, Ireland

Publications

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 15:11:42 +0300

▪ (2025) Machines Against Measures, Work, Employment and Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1177/09500170241296806
▪ (2025) Choosing Everything: Bataille’s perishable moments of sainthood, Journal for Cultural Research DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2024.2406393
▪ (2024) To Know is to Compare, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118x.2024.2396623
▪ (2023) Beyond the Wage: Ordinary Work in Diverse Economies, Work, Employment and Society, [Book Review], DOI: 10.1177/09500170231155796
▪ (2023): Media culture in Nomadic Communities, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2023.2229419
▪ (2023): Beyond the Wage: Ordinary Work in Diverse Economies, Work, Employment and Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1177/09500170231155796
▪ (2023): New Media and the Artaud Effect, Explorations in Media Ecology, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1386/eme_00167_5
▪ (2023): The triumph of profiling: the self in digital culture, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2062253
▪ (2022): “Zombie Colony: The Heteronomy of the Greek State & the Datura of Cultural Capital” in Theorising the Contemporary Zombie: Contextual Pasts, Presents, and Futures, Eds. Scott Eric Hamilton and Conor Heffernan, Wales University Press, Cardiff: pp. 161-184
▪ (2020): Post Qualitative Research - Reality through the Antihierarchical Assemblage of non-Calculation, DOI: 10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4756
▪ (2020): Posthuman knowledge, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2020.1739733
▪ (2020): Luxury and visual culture, Visual Studies, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1472586X.2020.1741948
▪ (2019): The data gaze: capitalism, power and perception, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2019.1609544
▪ (2019): Artificial unintelligence: how computers misunderstand the world / The message is murder: substrates of computational capital, Information, Communication & Society, [Review Essay] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2019.1576752
▪ (2019): Against nature: the metaphysics of information systems, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2018.1515239
▪ (2018): Virtual workers and the global labour market, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2018.1490797
▪ (2018): The quantified self in precarity. Work, technology and what counts, Information, Communication & Society, [Book Review] DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2017.1409789

Main

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 12:21:34 +0300

Blog

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 10:58:28 +0300

The Heteronomous smoker under post-qualitative inquiry

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 13:16:09 +0200

As a researcher I’ve chosen to methodologically approach my subject under an adaptation of the post-qualitative paradigm (St.Pierre, 2011). In essence I find, (hope to prove, might be a more correct phrase), that as my subject is very close to me, I am one with my research. The limits of traditional methodology, and the exclusions it entails are done away with. In simple words, all I do is listen to the cosmos, as me and my research exist as one. To phrase it more academically, I try to do away with the distinction between ontology, epistemology and methodology. All is one and it all operates in unison. The following incident helped me understand the law, and particularly autonomous vs heteronomous societies, and I hope it will provide both an example as to what the post-qualitative paradigm of using theory instead of method is all about, and as a bonus will help you see that the law is essentially a mediator of communication.

First things first dear reader. As I am one with my research, you need to make an effort to be a bit closer to us. Let us assume that you are a smoker...Ok you most likely are not a smoker, and you think that us smokers are a disgusting bunch of people with self destructive tendencies and potential future burdens to the state medical coffers. Ok I'll go with that...I am a disgusting person, who wants to shorten his lifespan whilst deriving some sort of twisted pleasure in appropriating your tax payments in future medical bills. But please bear with me and try to put yourself in my shoes. Come on be a smoker for a while...It is great... you get ciggie breaks and socialize with all the other self-destructive people at work.

Ok now that we all smoke, we can talk smoker to smoker about the law. Light up and follow me...The law is a paradoxical construct. The mere fact that it exists is a signifier of a lawless society. But what do you mean oh confusing one? How can the law signify a lawless society? Let me explain: Should we find ourselves in an advanced society in which we all more or less share the same principles, and as far as those principles are concerned there are no tensions between us, there would be no need for the law. Let us say that we find ourselves in a society that everybody thinks that eating marmite is an abomination. There would be no need for a law against marmite eaters…No one would go near the stuff.

But our societies are open. We fought hard to ensure we can all get along, and it is one of the few accomplishments our Western civilisation can lay claim to. Plurality and not uniformity is the motto. Which brings our tribe of marmite haters before a very significant question. As marmite lovers are a reality how will they interact with them? Will they stand in isolation from the marmite lovers or will they be social? And at what level? Will they simply limit themselves to the bare essential interaction: maybe sent out an emissary to do some trade with the consumers of the brown abomination, and then thoroughly wash and purge the emissary before he is allowed back to the marmite free lands? Or will they be more open...maybe actually live together with the marmite eaters?

Looks like we went with choice number two...The Marmite eaters are in...and it is not so bad...if we exclude their disgusting consumption of Marmite they are ok people...They add to the ambience...we learn from each other. So what is it that kept us apart all this time? My Balkan brother Slavoj Žižek (2016) when discussing the new class struggle, gives us the answer: It is jouissance. Let us pour ourselves a glass of fermented goats milk in honour of Slavoj, - it is really good for you (Rodrigues et al., 2005) and as I explained, you really have to make an effort to identify here. Light up another smoke, grab a spoonful of Marmite, and let us move on with our exploration.

You must be wondering why I turned you all into fellow smokers in the beginning of this pondering? It is because fellow wanderer I will now ask you to draw a mental picture with your smoking self in it. Now you must remember that smoking is the quintessential form of jouissance. It is purely little moments of pleasure you give to yourself. Actually, since we're all smokers in here, we have to admit honesty amongst us. Smoking is such an addictive habit that most pleasures become mere excuses to indulge in the pleasure to end them all, smoking. I just had sex? Let's have a smoke...I just ate the most delicious dinner? Let's have a smoke! I passed my annual progression review? Let's have a smoke...There you have it, let's press pause. I passed my annual progression review. This definitely calls for a ceremonial cigarette...Ah I know one shall attain nicotine bliss in front of Wolverhampton civic hall...This is a great idea befitting the occasion.

So on with the ritual. Roll, marvel at one's dexterity at rolling, (if anyone at them tobacco companies is reading this I can roll better than your factory rolling machines), get lighter out...curse the sudden wind...try lighter again...puff and look at the Black County… Dispose of biodegradable remains on floor...Pause again...What do you mean by asking if I like Marmite? Oh… do you mean to tell me that you smoke and then you look for the city sanctioned ashtray...Really? This is news to me...I smoke them and I chuck them...No, I do the same back home...Hey before I shared dwellings with females I even chucked them on my floor...Right next to my best friend mr Whiskey and yesterday’s pizza...Oh things don't work like that around here...Oh there is a fine involved…No warning or anything…Now that I think of it, hey it wasn’t me…Hey your tie looks kind of funny...oh it has a camera in it…Hey there is someone who looks like me smoking on your recording…He looks like Humphrey Bogart. Can you put a black and white filter on it? No…ok...oh if I insist that this is Humphrey Bogart and not me I have to take it to court…Oh I already have a court date…How thoughtful…

Now in all honesty dear reader I went home and wrote a big blog post about the surveillance state and how we are all turned to snitches. All this “see it-say it-sorted”, thing you get on train stations, doesn’t really sit well with me. But I was wrong…In this case I was othered…I am the Marmite eater. With the aid of another fellow smoker, Cornelius Castoriadis this becomes clear.

Now Cornelius would add to our debate and say this is all a question of Autonomy vs Heteronomy (Castoriadis, 1997). If our autonomous society detests marmite then it would need a law against marmite, not so much for itself, but simply to make the interaction with others possible. As the law defined in this way is a product of society, then society is free to change it as it sees fitting. The law and society are one, autonomous. Should we develop a taste for marmite then we are free to challenge and change our law. The marmite eaters on the other hand, fall under heteronomy. Should they choose to interact with the marmite haters, they do so under the condition that they temporarily forgo of the brown stuff. Heteronomy essentially means two things. The law is not of you, hence you cannot challenge it. And this essentially implies that when you fall under heteronomy you become subjugated. Not by force, but simply by choosing to place yourself under heteronomy.

Thus, this brings us to see the law as a tool. A tool which allows people of different jouissance to communicate, whilst setting the boundaries of that relation. On the one hand it costed me 75 quid to discover that, on the other I can now apply my newly found wisdom into my stuff. Hey the cosmos spoke and I listened…cool…I might step up the scales a bit and ask my faculty to address me as The Sovereign, owing to the principal concept behind my thesis…who knows…

This brings us to the second strata of post-qualitative: Writing as enquiry. Maybe this text that you just read doesn’t make much sense. It is ok, it is part of the process: write it as it comes, evaluate, amend…Take the occurrence through theory, look at the result and then produce a new understanding of the theory: a living theory.

References

Castoriadis, C. (1997) The Greek Polis and the Creation of Democracy, In The Castoriadis reader, Blackwell readers, Curtis, D. A. (ed.), Oxford ; Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell Publishers, pp. 267–289.