EDA Collective - Twerking to turking. Everyday analysis, volume 2

The political landscape, in the so-called West, remains as unarable today as it has been since the hegemony of the supposed centre in parliamentary politicsthat is, the hymnsheet all the mainstream parties sing fromlaid the fields of political possibility, if not to waste, as it may have believed, then fallow, the returning crop of which has been the ravaging lurch to the right (exampled in the election of UKIP in the European elections in the UK). This pestilent weed is one especially adapted to growing in such an arid season. In such times as these we can only pray that analyses of, and investigations into, this situations cultural catalysts and everyday originations can do some work and provide some hope, which is our intention with our second book. In thisour second volume of Everyday Analysis articleswe are covering everything from the dance craze of twerking (a movement in which the glutus maximus is shaken mesmerisingly, popularised on the internet by Miley Cyrus controversial deployment of it in a performance with Robin Thicke) to Turking (the form of work in which an employee is paid a one-off rate for the completion of a task posted online; that is, paid directly their use-value, as opposed to an hourly or minimum wage). We order these articles by theme alphabetically, for ease of navigation, beginning with Advertising and ending with Work and Play, and we are very proud to be able to punctuate them with great illustrations and artwork.

Since the publication of our first book, Why are Animals Funny? Everyday Analysis: Volume 1, we have grown in number of contributors, and thus diversity of theoretical engagement; we have contributed articles to other publications, such as the Guardian; and we have found resonance with audiences ranging from casual surfers online to those of the University (students and teachers alike, and interdisciplinarily), from those established already by publishing outlets (our own followers on our social media and blog, to those of our publisher, the eminent Zer0 Books) to those curious enough to pick a new book up off the shelves which claims to decode the humour of our grumpy feline friendsthe everyday reaches us all, and its analysis, it seems, has sparked the interest of people everywhere.

In the introduction to our first volume we defended vigorously, and we hope rigorously, analysis and critical theory as not only important tools with which to approach and decode our everyday situation (and the operations of ideology, propaganda, and even revolutionary radicality silently, subtly, and often unconsciously at work within it), but also as something intrinsic to our everyday; that is, that lifehowever simple it might feel or unexamined it may remainalways inherently involves processes of interpretation and decipherment, in all of its day-to-day going-about-its-business. In this opening to our new book we will concentrate more on modes of analysis, and try to define what our presiding ones have been, and how they might also move or shift in future realisations.

Probably the most significant criticism that Everyday Analysis has come under in the course of its first year (from January 2013 to 2014), is that it has been too lenient on the problematic in the popular culture that it has tackled (one instance of which concerned our take on Robin Thicke and sexism, from which we received tweets asking why we only focused on the issue of feminism, as opposed to the misogynistic pro-rape structures of society, for example), or even that it has defended such problematic elements of culture, instead of attacking them (such as the attempt to discover a radicalism in controversial rapper A$AP Rockys music and particularly his voice).placed, and herein we will try to negotiate them.