A Teaching Guide To: BEADS, BODIES . - Carnivalesque Films
Innovative EthnographiesPlease visit the series website atwww.innovativeethnographies.netA Teaching Guide to:BEADS,BODIES,and TRASHPublic Sex, Global Labor, and theDisposability of Mardi GrasDavid RedmonA teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash1
Beads, Bodies, and Trash merges cultural sociology with acommodity chain analysis by following Mardi Gras beads totheir origins. Beginning with Bourbon Street of New Orleans,this book moves to the grim factories in the tax-free economiczone of rural Fuzhou, China. Beads, Bodies, and Trash teachesreaders to think critically about and question everyday objectsthat circulate around the globe: where do objects come from,how do they emerge, where do they end up, what are theirproperties, what assemblages do they form, and what are theconsequences (both beneficial and harmful) of those properties on the environment and human bodies? Beads, Bodies,and Trash also asks readers to confront how the beadscan contradictorily be implicated in fun, sexist, unequal,and toxic relationships of production, consumption, anddisposal.With a companion documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China,this book introduces readers to recording technologies aspossible research tools. Beads, Bodies, and Trash is a workof sensory ethnography appropriate for courses in genderand sexuality; qualitative or ethnographic research methods;deviance, crime, and social control; social movements;globalization; introduction to sociology; and social problems.A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash2
Mardi Gras: Made in ChinaWiNNer OF tWeNty-ONe national and international awards, Mardi Gras:Made in China follows the path of Mardi Gras beads from the streets ofNew Orleans during Carnival – where revelers party and exchange beadsfor nudity – to the disciplined factories in Fuzhou, China – where teenagegirls live and sew beads together all day and night. Blending curiosity withcomedy, Mardi Gras: Made in China is the only film to explore how the toxicproducts directly affect the people who both make and consume them.Valuable links to sociologically critique Beads, Bodies, and Trash and MardiGras: Made in as.shtmlA teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash3
theMatiC analysisiNStead OF prOVidiNG a chapter-by-chapter critical summary of Beads,Bodies, and Trash, i have instead created a thematic outline to address specificconcepts and questions that emerge in the book. My analysis of the book, andthe questions derived from them, are suitable for first year to fourth year collegestudents. in the spirit of C.W. Mills, i have made an effort to connect individualexperiences with social structures while developing a series of questions toengage critical thinking and application exercises.1.sensory Culture and total institutions. 52.draMaturGy and FunCtionalisM. 73.sensory studies. 94.Global CoMModity Chain. 115.Gender, sexuality, and the body. 136.Cultural CriMinoloGy and soCial Control. 157.Video ethnoGraphy. 17A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash4
1. sensory Culture and total institutionsGOFFMaN’S FOrMal deFiNitiON of a total institution is “a place of residence and work where alarge number of like-situated individuals, cut offfrom the wider society for an appreciable periodof time, together lead an enclosed, formallyadministered round of life.” according to Goffman, total institutions are places that control orgovern residents’ lives to a great extent. theyare a place for work and life that accommodate alarge number of individuals with a similar statuswho live together for an extended period of timein isolation from wider society. How is the TaiKuen bead factory an example of a total institu-tion? What function does this type of institutionprovide? Who does it benefit, how, and in whatways? Can you identify “mortification processes”(series of steps to strip identity, degradationceremony) that occur in the Tai Kuen bead factory? What do you think are the consequences ofreinforcing the repetition of sensory experiencesand restricting movement for the workers?in the total institution all aspects of life areconducted in the same place under the samesingle authority. each phase of the member’sdaily activity is carried on in the immediate com-A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash5
pany of a large batch of others. all phases of theday’s activities are tightly scheduled. the wholesequence of activities is imposed from above bya system of explicit formal rulings by a body ofofficials (an organization or group). Understoodwithin a global context, what is the purposeof segmenting factories as total institutions inunseen regions of the world’s global economy?Beads, Bodies, and Trash suggests that BourbonStreet during Mardi Gras is arranged so thatits participants can get wasted and pollute itsenvironment as a way to consume ‘experientialfun’. Visualizing the factory conditions duringthe Mardi Gras atmosphere would create anunwanted awareness in New Orleans that couldspoil the somatic order. Why do you think teenage laborers and their working conditions arerelegated to unseen, highly monitored, remoteregions inside special economic zones? Whatrole do neoliberal practices contribute to arranging this total institutional order and affirming theeconomic arrangements in place? Do you thinkthis neoliberal arrangement erases evidence ofthe workers’ humanity and sensuality and hidestheir labor conditions? Why or why not? What isthe incentive and who does it benefit? What is acounter argument?pace of work in the factory and how they embodymechanisms of disciplinary control. Workersbecome alienated (or separated) from theproduct of their labor and thus their work offerslittle intrinsic satisfaction. alienation occurs fromother people, their families, and the communityof revelers that receives the beads. In Beads,Bodies and Trash, who benefits from these powerarrangements and how? Can you identify elements of power differences and how the characteristics of total institutions play a fundamentalrole in shaping and reproducing power relations?What role does disposable consumption play increating these arrangements of discipline andpleasure?last, Beads, Bodies, and Trash suggests that thetai Kuen bead factory increases surplus laborby cheapening labor and de-skilling workers,and thus makes it easier to recruit, control, anddiscipline workers through their senses. Chaptertwo, for example, illustrates how the arrangementof the architecture and its machinery sets theA teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash6
2. draMaturGy and FunCtionalisMdraMaturGy CONSiStS OF perFOrMaNCeS ineveryday life. Beads, Bodies, and Trash presentsnudity and sexual behaviors inside a sensoryorder of scripted embodied performances saturated with somatic props: noise, material goods,chanting crowds, and media technology thatencourage and record the performances as digitalcontent. What function does the sensory orderprovide revelers in this atmosphere of scripts,props, settings, and action? How do Mardi Grasbeads wield exceptional sensorial and interpretive power? What role do beads play during theperformance of public sex and nudity as entertainment? How does the sensorial atmosphereand the beads encourage revelers to performnudity or public sex who otherwise may not wantto participate? And how do the revelers concealthese nude and sexual performances after theyreturn home?according to a dramaturgical approach, peoplecreate and project images that suit our purposesin various situational moments in life. Can youidentify dramaturgical performances in Beads,Bodies, and Trash? What are the characteristicsof these performances? What function do theyserve?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash7
Front stage is what’s visible to an audience,whereas the back stage includes all that is notvisible to an audience. a “front” is that part of ourperformance that regularly functions in a generaland fixed fashion to define the situation for thosewho observe the performance. a back region orbackstage may be defined as a place, relativeto a given performance, where the impressionfostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted. Goffman suggests that the back regionor back stage is kept closed from the audienceand the entire region is meant to be kept hidden.Where is the back region in Beads, Bodies, andTrash (or in the movie Mardi Gras: Made inChina)? Why is it hidden from the participants?Does the Tai Kuen bead factory contain a backspace for workers?impression Management is the process of managing settings, words, nonverbal communication,and dress in an effort to create a particular imageof individuals and situations. How does the partyatmosphere of Mardi Gras use impression management to entice revelers to behave in specificways? How does Roger, owner of the Tai Kuenbead factory, try to manage the impressions ofhis factory through his language, words, andgestures? What’s in his interest to manage aviewer or reader’s impressions?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash8
3. sensory studiesBeads, Bodies, and Trash uses sensory studiesto explain how touch, desire, smell, or the tasteof bodies organizes social relations betweenrevelers and workers. For example, revelersperform sensual actions with their bodies toacquire beads, whereas workers also performsensual actions to make beads. Can you provideexamples of the various sensual actions thatrevelers and workers perform?Merging global ethnography with new materialisms and sensual matter allows sociologists toconnect different assemblages in the politicaleconomy that involve products like Mardi Grasbeads. these products are implicated in genderand sexual relationships, shaped by somaticexperiences, steeped in various forms of economic inequalities, and involved in distributingvarious hazardous chemicals to different regionsof the world. the new approach to sensual materialism examines the in-deterministic formationof somatic assemblages. Why does new materialism consider non-humans as part of public lifeand how does it foreground the interdependencyof people, things, and nature? What’s the methodological and phenomenological purpose offraming objects as porous and permanentlychangeable with indefinite beginnings andendings?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash9
Beads, Bodies, and Trash suggests that beads arecontainers for the senses and that beads performcorporeal or somatic work. according to phillipVannini, dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk,somatic work focuses on people’s interactivelived experiences, emotional relationships, andembodied encounters with objects in the sensorysphere. What is the sensory sphere and whatare its characteristics? How is it different thanHabermas’s notion of communicative rationality?Why does it focus on the body through tactilesensory interactions and materiality, but not themind or reason? According to the author, whereand when did the sensory sphere emerge?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash10
4. Global CoMModity ChainsHOpKiNS aNd WallerSteiN developed theconcept of global commodity chains to map theproduction, distribution, and consumption ofgoods. What is the global commodity chain inBeads, Bodies, and Trash? How does it transformover the course of the book? What are theproperties of beads? What are the consequencesof their chemical properties on the environmentand bodies?Global commodity chain refers to the entire rangeof activities involved in the design, production,marketing, and consumption of a product. Canyou describe the characteristics of these activi-ties in relation to beads? What is the process bywhich VerdiGras transforms the sacred status ofa bead into a deviant status? Do you agree withtheir approach? Why or why not?Focusing on global commodity chains allowresearchers to trace the forward, backwards, andvertical movements that link the production,design, marketing, distribution, consumption,and disposal of products. What other links canbe included in this movement? Which links doesthe author in Beads, Bodies, and Trash omit orfail to highlight? Why are these neglected linksimportant?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash11
Global commodity chains reveal how the structure of the global division of labor is organizedand how it impacts ecology and bodies (e.g.,chemicals in beads). Is the division of laborequal or is it arranged so that some regions ofthe world benefit in ways that are detrimentalto other regions? Which ones? How is it possible that your computer, iPhone or camera canbecome part of the making of the commoditychain of a Mardi Gras bead?Global commodity chains can be expanded tounderstand how senses are a crucial factor inexamining objects. Why? What is so importantabout the senses in understanding objects?What does the author mean when he suggeststhat objects have “vibrancy?”How does the materiality of sensuality intertwinewith the political economy to lend shape andform to commodity chains such as penis andbreast beads that resemble the breasts andpenises exposed on Bourbon Street?Last, what are the social, environmental, andembodied damages associated with the consumption of cheap merchandise such as MardiGras beads? Can you identify the benefits?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash12
5. Gender, sexuality, and the bodySOCiOlOGiStS Study tHe BOdy as a source ofsocial conflict, tension, and regulation. Sociologists are also interested in how gender influencesthe organization and division of labor. In thebook, Beads, Bodies and Trash, and in the movieMardi Gras: Made in China, how is gender andsexuality revealed as part of the process ofcommodification of female bodies, female socialcontrol, and female ‘liberation’ in the factory andon Bourbon Street? How is masculinity positioned during Mardi Gras rituals and in the MardiGras bead factory?Social control is another concept sociologistsuse to understand the formation of gender roles.Which bodies are more likely to encounterthe toxic chemicals inside Mardi Gras beads?Why and how does gender influence this toxicarrangement? What role does VerdiGras play increating a social movement to transform thesechemical and sensual relationships?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash13
teenagers and women in New Orleans and thefactory both face differential opportunities andconstraints in terms of access to and distributionof resources and wealth. they also have accessto different lived sensory experiences. Whatdo you think organizes the opportunities andconstraints to these resources, the ownership ofproperty, and access to certain sensory experiences? What is the role of the senses in theformation of gender and sexuality? How does thebook and the movie connect the disposability ofbeads with the disposability of pleasure, bodies,and trash?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash14
6. Cultural CriMinoloGyCultural CriMiNOlOGy FOCuSeS on the livedexperiences of erotic or seductive elements ofcrime. For example, a desire for entertainmentmight motivate people to pursue crime as aleisure event. Cultural criminologists mightexamine the foreground of pleasures or sensualimmediacy of criminal behaviors to understandits sociological context.in Chapter 5 of Beads, Bodies, and Trash, Mikepresdee discusses the emerging characteristics ofthe sensual sphere. He argues that the effervescence of carnival is the second life of the peopleand notes that effervescence has become woveninto everyday culture through the global mediacircuits. Furthermore, presdee treats efferves-cence as a resource, like labor, beads, or water,and suggests that modern industries capture andcommodify it as an experiential commodity. How iscommodifying transgression, deviance, and socialcontrol connected to the creation of fascinationwith crime? What are the individual, economic,toxic, and structural crimes that take place inBeads, Bodies, and Trash? Who is responsibleand why? According to cultural criminology, howdo these crimes emerge and how do sensationssustain and reproduce them as criminal imagesand sounds?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash15
another area of interest for cultural criminologistsis institutional structures of political and economic power that create domination. Where in thebook and/or movie is seduction of crime located?Where is the desire for criminal entertainment?Can you identify and explain their connectionto political or economic power? Is it possiblethat revelers seek Mardi Gras as a way to resisteveryday domination in their own lives? If avenues of public pleasure have been diminished,then is it possible that bead exchange for nudityand public sex is paradoxically exploitive andliberating? And if this explanation is legitimate,then how does contemporary recording devicescommodity these behaviors and broadcast themas spectacle?according to Jeff Ferrell and Keith Hayward,cultural and sensual dynamics intertwine withthe practices of crime control to create mediaspectacles. Cultural criminologists immersethemselves inside the lived experiences of themedia spectacles to better understand transgression, deviance, and crime’s sensuous qualities.How can deviance, transgression, and crimebe treated as entertaining commodities? Howis transgression manufactured, distributed,purchased, and disposed? According to culturalcriminologists, how is it possible to globallyallocate stimulation and discipline so readilyavailable as a resource as indicated in the bookBeads, Bodies, and Trash?Last, what is synopticism and how is it differentthan panopticism?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash16
7. Video ethnoGraphyVideO etHNOGrapHy is the practice of usingaudiovisual tools to observe, interpret, andrecord living experiences as images, sounds, andmotion and then re-constitute it as experientialknowledge. the author of Beads, Bodies, andTrash suggests that video ethnography can morereadily appeal to viewers’ emotions and sensoryknowledge by showing why and how beads aresignificant to those who use and dispose ofthem. Video ethnography, through audiovisualmethods, can show and provide the ‘material’of lived experience to concepts such as genderinequality or commodity chains.What are the benefits to viewers who can seeand hear aesthetic and sensory knowledge? Howdoes video ethnography directly engage withsight, sound, and movement in ways that writtenknowledge cannot render?A teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash17
the author also argues that Video ethnographyis an extension of qualitative and ethnographicresearch and that perception, motion, sound, andaudio replace written words. Chapter 6 of Beads,Bodies, and Trash argues that video ethnographyprovides a theoretically informed, practice-basedinflection on how to use audiovisual technologiesto make ethnographies. What are examples ofsight, sound, and motion, and how are theyan extension of written ethnography? In youropinion, does video ethnography help developsociology as a discipline? How is it possible tointegrate video ethnography with written ethnographies and what’s the benefit of doing both? Isthere a place for quantitative sociology in videoethnography? Why or why not?For questions, critiques, or comments, pleasecontact david redmon at:mgmadeinchina@yahoo.comA teaching guide toBeads, Bodies, and Trash18
A teaching guide to Beads, Bodies, and Trash 3 WiNNer OF tWeNty-ONe national and international awards, Mardi Gras: Made in China follows the path of Mardi Gras beads from the streets of New Orleans during Carnival – where revelers party and exchange beads
106 Zen anD material culture (Ch. nianzhu), can be understood either as "recitation beads," describing the beads as an aid in chanting practices, or as "mindfulness beads," sug-gesting that "chanting is an aid to meditation and even a form of it."28 The earliest text on prayer beads, the Mu huanzi jing, states that the rosary should have 108 beads, which is the most common number of
Most of these beads are made from sections of jack rabbit (Lepus sp.) tibiae and radii. Eleven of these beads are burned. Mammal bone beads, Type III. The thirty-nine bone beads of this type have a length range of 10 to 35 mm. and Ran average diameter of 4 mm. Some of these small beads hav
Issue 69 Autumn 2016 Circular or Half-Moon Marks on Old Beads Alison Kyra Carter O ver several years working in a bead store, and more recently studying ancient beads from Southeast Asia, I frequently saw beads that had circular or half-moon-shaped marks on their surface (Figure 1). Most of the beads were old, fairly large, and spherical. The
3. PLASTERING & BLOCK ACCESSORIES 1) Angle Corner Beads 2) Plaster Stop Beads 3) Control Joint Beads 4) Architrave Beads 5) Metal lath (Coil / Sheets / Riblath) 6) Formwork –Hyrib 7) Steel Meshes (Fencing, Caging and Gratings) 8) Block Reinforcement Mesh (Coil Lath) 9) Ladder Type Reinforcement 10) Wall Ties & Ancho
interaction between bead-bound molecules and analyte brings the beads into proximity. Excite the donor beads with red light. Singlet oxygen generated by donor beads excites the acceptor beads, which emit light proportional to the level of interaction. ALPHA TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AlphaScreen Per
Beads are an integral part of the Krobo culture and have so many uses and symbolic meanings. But in recent times, the uses and symbolism of Krobo beads seem to be under emphasized. This study focuses on how the beads are produced, irthe uses and sy
Sacrifice Beads One day, Saint Therese’s older sister, Marie, gave Therese a set of sacrifice beads. “Each time you make a sacrifice, say a little prayer, and pull a bead,” Marie told Therese. Therese loved the beads. She did many sacrifices and thought, “I can do little sacrifices for Jesus.”
ISO 14001:2015 Standard Overview Understand the environmental management system standard and how to apply the framework in your business. An effective environmental management system takes more than a single software solution or achieving a certificate for the wall. It takes time, energy, commitment and investment. Qualsys’ software and solutions provide your entire organisation with the .
