Recreational activism: politics, nature, and the rise of neoliberalism

Erickson, Bruce

doi:10.1080/02614367.2011.594078

Cited by 32 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…As Eriksen frames it, taking the pledge was deciding "to begin the task of personal improvement within the religious framework provided by the [temperance] organisation". 85 In many cases though, it proved to be more symbolic than practical. For many who took the pledge of the Irish Total Abstinence Society headed by Father Theobald Mathew, the vow was less of a binding commitment than a declaration of hopeful intent.…”

Section: Tsi On the Movementioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty-first-century transnational neo-temperance

Robert¹

2020

Alcohol Flows Across Cultures

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TSI) are short-term campaigns through which participants refrain from drinking alcohol for a period of time, typically a month, and (although not always formally required) concurrently raise money for a sponsored charity by soliciting donations. Better known by names such as FebFast and Dry January, these increasingly popular initiatives fuse the current fashion of channelling philanthropic engagement through the body (as seen in charity campaigns such as Movember and charity fun runs) with the broader public health concerns seeking to address what have been deemed to be problematic drinking cultures in places such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Finland. 1 Having begun in Finland 2005 but developed in earnest starting from Australia in 2008, these initiatives emphasise a combination of charitable giving, responsibility for one's personal health, and awareness of alcohol's effects and social ubiquity. From their origins as grassroots campaigns, TSI have multiplied and crossed borders. Like many social movements of the 21 st century, TSI have used existing philanthropic networks and the connectivity afforded by the Internet and social media to exceed their small-scale origins and become international movements and major fundraisers. 2 To wit, in 2017, Australia's Dry July campaign raised nearly 4.3 million (Australian) dollars, not counting the fund raised in its New Zealand and British spin-offs, and a British survey reported that roughly one in six members of the adult drinking population intended to have a Dry January. 3 TSI portray themselves as novel and innovative responses to crises of binge drinking and the creeping cultural ubiquity of alcohol. 4 Cognisant of the reputation of temperance movements as archaic and moralistic organisations, most are at pains to keep temperance associated with the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. 5 Despite the apparent and arguably deliberate disconnect between TSI and temperance, TSI have deep but unacknowledged roots in temperance. Like the transnational temperance movements that gained in popularity from the 1870s, TSI found greatest favour in English-speaking countries, spreading from the Antipodes first to Europe and then to

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Section: Tsi On the Movementioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty-first-century transnational neo-temperance

Robert¹

2020

Alcohol Flows Across Cultures

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“…Today, lawns collectively comprise one of the largest landscapes in the US (Robbins 2012). Throughout this process, nature became something to be purchased and cultivated by middle and upper income communities to escape the specter of urban life (Erickson 2011;Simon and Algona 2013).…”

Section: Homelessness and The Value Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

The City Is not Innocent: Homelessness and the Value of Urban Parks

Speer

Goldfischer

2019

Capitalism Nature Socialism

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This paper builds on contemporary memoirs of homelessness from cities across the United States to develop a more nuanced understanding of the use value of urban parks and green spaces. Based on analysis of more than seventy memoirs, we synthesize the writings of nine memoirists who examine their relationship to green spaces in cities. Instead of framing nature as something pristine and distinct from society-or something dangerous and untamedthese writings portray urban green spaces as sites of belonging and everyday life. In the US today, cities often value parks either as playgrounds for middle-class leisure or devalue them as targets of racialized anti-homeless policing. In both instances, parks are framed in relation to their impact on the exchange value of surrounding urban areas. In contrast, the memoirs of homelessness we examine portray parks and other green spaces as enabling privacy, survival, and emotional solace in an urban landscape often marked by surveillance, deprivation, and violence. These crucial values reveal a new conceptualization of urban parks as profoundly useful to those who are subject to the exclusions of capitalist property.

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“…Seemingly of lesser importance is the central role of the body; this despite the fact that the body is core to not only to the fundraising but also to related agendas oriented around martyrdom, empathy, and health promotion that link philanthropists, the wider public, and beneficiaries. A second group of studies, often coming from disciplines such as kinesiology, has paid greater attention to the role of the utility of the body in both historical and contemporary recreational (Erikson, ) and physical (Schultz, ) activism. Although not generally framed as philanthropy, these initiatives echo many of its goals and methods, notably using the body to publicize a cause and, in some cases, fundraising.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices and rationales of embodied philanthropy

Robert

2017

J of Philanthropy and Mktg

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In the past decades, philanthropy, like many aspects of contemporary culture, has taken a bodily turn. This paper argues that embodied philanthropy, the temporarily alteration of one's physical appearance or routine behaviors in support of a cause, is flourishing because the body simultaneously and with relatively little effort serves the various needs of both participants and campaign organizers. The body's multivalent semiotic potential allows it to be, when philanthropically tasked, an income generator, billboard, martyred example, producer of emotion, pedagogical space, exemplar of good health, and style project and to cohere these functions despite potential tensions.A series of micro-case studies of various Australian appearance, activity, and abstention-based initiatives draws on cultural theories of the body to explicate these 7 core functions of the philanthropic body and highlight key concerns for campaign design and evaluation. This study contends that a holistic view of embodied philanthropy initiatives is needed to better understand their impact and provides practitioners and scholars with a framework for understanding an area of philanthropy where practice outstrips research.

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Recreational activism: politics, nature, and the rise of neoliberalism

Cited by 32 publications

References 35 publications

Twenty-first-century transnational neo-temperance

Twenty-first-century transnational neo-temperance

The City Is not Innocent: Homelessness and the Value of Urban Parks

Practices and rationales of embodied philanthropy

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