Notes People, Place and Culture 17/18

People, place and culture lectures

Lecture 1 – introduction
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McDonaldization: everything should be efficient, everything should be alike. At a start, it
contributed to happiness of people: cheap, quick. But it is not a single story: there are
negative sides  use of pesticides, impersonal etc. Ritzer: frames rationalization as
McDonaldization: while the fast-food restaurant is not the ultimate expression of rationality,
it is the prime example. 5 major dimensions:
 Efficiency: time and cost efficiency are important. Time is money, we don’t want to
have too many costs, if we waste money, we waste life  mass production brings
monetary efficiency  mass consumption for maximum time efficiency e.g. mc drive/
thuisbezorgd.
 Predictability: manage people’s expectations  avoid big surprises. E.g. packaged
tours: you know where you go and when. E.g. lonely planet: even when people go
backpacking to explore the world, all of them read lonely planet to see what others
thought of places where they went.
 Calculability: Quantity rather than quality. Emphasis on quantifiable measures –
thinking in numbers (like using s numbers). Market players and governments both
think in number.
 Substitution non-human technology: people continue to act in unforeseen ways.
Robots over people argument – not people acting like robots (like in McDonalds,
everything they say is predefined by their boss). Marx (1867): instruments of labor
(machinery) over subjects of labor (ppl) bc ppl do what ou don’t want them to do.
 Control: managing uncertainties as much as possible  humans are the greatest
uncertainty  we tend to do what we want even if we are very well instructed, we
have our own opinion, we don’t agree with something. Direct accountability: the
receipt tells who you are served by – drive for workers to do well.
 overall, a fully rational society would be a very bleak and uninteresting place (Ritzer) – he is
an optimistic pessimist: yes, it would be bad, but he doesn’t expect it to happen.
Rationalization is related to time-space compression, interconnectedness, mobility.
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Bauman: globalization is smt that is happening to us: it's random, lottery, lack of clarity, lack
of order. We can’t get a grip on it. Bauman says that there is a redistribution going on
- Of privileges and deprivations: some can do more, some can do less
- Wealth and poverty: some get wealthier, some get poorer.
- Resources and impotence.
- Power and powerlessness.
- Freedom and constraint.
 what is free choice for some is cruel fate for some others. This is worldwide bc things are
interconnected.
Globalization for some: the happy few – resource rich and powerful people, tourists (they
have the money, they have the resources, they can do what they want) total winners of
globalization.
Localization for a lot of others: people are becoming ever more local – people who are left
behind. Losers of globalization. Vagabonds (they travel because they have no other choice 
like refugees etc.)

, This is the dominant undercurrent in society: some ppl win, some ppl lose.
Things are happening globally, but also locally  think global, act local  making better
places.
- Reactive action: after a situation has occurred e.g. trees are being cut for creating a
new highway  protesting against this  making sure things remain the same  not
progressive.
- Proactive action: making things happen instead of waiting for it to happen 
changing things  progressive.
o Bottom up e.g. pirate radio – you are not in line with the music that is played
so you will broadcast it yourself (irrelevant now bc we have internet) but
pirate radio can also be reactive (bc things have changed into hip-hop and
dance music and they for example want to keep playing Dutch music)
o Top down: government led (very often in the Netherlands)
Liquid modernity: things are ever more mobility  always changing: rapid change.
Negotiating change: dealing with and making sure that parts of it are less affecting you.
People need beakens (houvast) to navigate.
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Lecture 2 – discourses

Lecture 3 – Community
Community: there is an intrinsic association with place. it's and emergent quality that
embodies structures, institutions and social processes. You belong to multiple communities,
you enter and exit them. You can be excluded by choice or by the community itself.
Community: a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in
common. The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common 
values.
 group, belonging, gatekeepers (decide who is in, who is out  hierarchy)
Tönnies:
- Gemeinschaft (small scale, neighborhood based communities = village, my cocoon
and the outside world) &
- Gesellschaft (large scale, competitive market society= industrial society. Not working
on farms, being dependent on big company owners, modern society. Us and them.).
 dichotomy: juxtaposing two distinct categories.
A common enemy builds a community.
Endogenous, induced, bottom up.

Barrett: key points
 How is the internal structure of community framed?
 What is the impact of exogenous societal structures on communities?
Panacea for everything: just go to your community and they can help you, a medicine for
every problem. But Barrett also sees problems: it would be wrong to blame the stranger for
what is wrong in a community. Myth of community: there are false assumptions (it doesn’t
always help you, there is no homogeneity: everyone is the same). It can be heaven or hell: it
might help you, but also it might exclude you. Barret: community can exclude you or can
make you feel part of a community, ‘captures both attachment and exclusion’.