<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">danah, group,<div><br><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I've been trying to write an essay for a while about the class dynamics around Facebook and MySpace.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I finally gave up and realized that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I wrote an essay with caveats.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I offer it to you to tear to shreds in the hopes that maybe some good can come out of it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(I didn't include the full text here because it's long - i hope the link doesn't discourage folks from checking it out.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Feedback is *very* welcome.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html">http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html</a></div></blockquote><br></div><div>I read the essay with great interest, and can conclude the following:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>a) The overall argument is well formed and quite interesting.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>b) The class-argument bothers me.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I don't think there's much wrong with saying that the old class-notion, building on socio-economic standing and historic (not necessarily materialistic) subjectification processes can be utilized to analyze contemporary social behaviors. However, the way in which the essay has been written makes it all too easy to see the division suggested as entrenched and embedded in a greater class context -- and this is bothersome.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>To begin, the labels of "hegemonic" and "subaltern" are not very good (as danah suggests). Subalternity is normally understood as a truly abject state, one where having access (not to mention the time and inclination) to online social networks is not a given. Sure, more and more people have access, but using the term subaltern for all the "geeks" hanging out at MySpace could be seen as insulting to people who are actually are subaltern (if one insists one sticking to an US-centric view, think Appalachian poor, otherwise I have some Ukrainian streetkids you can meet). Also, "hegemonic" suggests a state of semi-permanent control and status, and I wonder if it suits the movements danah is trying to map.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Instead, what we may be seeing is a splintering of the middle-classes into the "aspiring" and the "desparing", those who see their role as one of "becoming hegemonic" (in the sense of permanently trying to become -- a Deleuzian becoming if you will) and those who embrace their self-ascribed outsidership. This move, which almost certainly will be played out on e.g. social networks, is highly interesting from a class perspective, and very elegantly argued in the essay.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Another thing (and now I'm really showing my geek roots -- I taught value and class theory at one point, and realize that this prattling on about class makes me sound closer to 65 than my biological 35), is that the essay seems to be channeling some ideas about the <i>Lumpenproletariat</i> that may be a tad dangerous. Yes, the "Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids" may be a grouping that can be clumped together under the heading "outsiders", but do we really want to ascribe to them this notion of them sharing a class subjectivity, becoming what Marx labeled a "dangerous class"? I am fully aware that some kids in this group would absolutely love that, but such a grouping should build on a shared sense of subject-positions, not on the ways in which different people try to form their own images.</div> </div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>In other words, maybe it would be best not to bring out the "biggest guns" of class theory -- hegemony, subalternity, the Lumpen -- in order to analyze this, but instead look at the more subtle shifts in allegiances and subjectifications in contemporary society. Beyond this <i>caveat,</i> I believe there is much to be said for exactly the kind of analysis presented here by danah.<br><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="">-- </div><div style="">Professor Alf Rehn</div><div style="">Chair of Management and Organization (Åbo Akademi University)</div><div style="">SSES Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Royal Institute of Technology)</div><div style=""><br style=""></div><div style="">Åbo Akademi University</div><div style="">Department of Business Studies</div><div style="">Henriksgatan 7</div><div style="">20500 Åbo, FINLAND</div><div style=""><br style=""></div><div style="">Royal Institute of Technology</div><div style="">Department of Industrial Economics and Management</div><div style="">10044 Stockholm, SWEDEN</div><div style=""><br style=""></div><div style=""><a href="mailto:alf@abo.fi">alf@abo.fi</a>, <a href="mailto:alf@kth.se">alf@kth.se</a></div><div style=""><a href="http://www.alfrehn.com">http://www.alfrehn.com</a>/</div><div style=""><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div style="">"Velox, vilis, immunda"</div><div style=""><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></span> </div><br></body></html>