Culture, Identity and Intense Performativity
Being in the zone means performing in a distinctive, unusual, pleasurable and highly competent way at something you already regularly do: dancing or playing a viola, computer programming, tennis and much more. What makes the zone special? This volume offers groundbreaking research that brings sociological and cultural studies to bear on the idea of being in the zone. There is original research on musicians, dancers and surfers which shows that being in the zone, far from being exclusively individualised and private, must be understood as social and collective and possibly accessible to all. The zone is not just for elite performers.
Being in the zone is not just the province of the athlete who suddenly, and seemingly without extra effort, swims faster or jumps higher or the musician who suddenly plays more than perfectly, but also of the doctor working under intense pressure or the computer programmer staying up all night. The meaning of such experiences for convincing people to work in intense conditions, often with short- term contracts, is explored to show how being in the zone can have problematic effects, and have negative and constraining, as well as creative and productive implications.
Often being in the zone is only understood from a psychological viewpoint but this can limit our understanding. This volume provides the first in-depth analysis of being in the zone from social and cultural viewpoints, drawing on a range of theories and novel evidence.
Written in a stimulating and accessible style, Culture, Identity and Intense Performativity: Being in the Zone will strongly appeal to students and researchers who aim to understand the experience of work, creativity, musicianship and sport. Issues of the body are also central to being in the zone and will make this book relevant to anyone studying bodies and embodiment. This collection will establish being in the zone as an important area of enquiry for social science and the humanities.
Tim Jordan is Professor of Digital Cultures and Head of School of Media, Film and Music at Sussex University.
Brigid McClure is Associate Researcher with the Department for Culture, Media & Creative Industries at Kings College London, with a substantive post as Assistant Chief Operating Officer for the five Arts & Sciences faculties.
Kath Woodward is Professor of Sociology at the Open University.
Innovations in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Creative Arts
Series Editors: Anthony Elliott and Jennifer Rutherford
Hawke Research Institute, University of South Australia
This series addresses the importance of innovative contemporary, comparative and conceptual research on the cultural and institutional contradictions of our times and our lives in these times. Antinomies publishes theoretically innovative work that critically examines the ways in which social, cultural, political and aesthetic change is rendered visible in the global age, and that is attentive to novel contradictions arising from global transformations. Books in the Series are from authors both well- established and early- career researchers. Authors will be recruited from many, diverse countries but a particular feature of the Series will be its strong focus on research from Asia and Australasia. The Series addresses the diverse signatures of contemporary global contradictions, and as such seeks to promote novel transdisciplinary understandings in the humanities, social sciences and creative arts.
The Series Editors are especially interested in publishing books in the following areas that fit within the broad remit of the series:
- New architectures of subjectivity
- Cultural sociology
- Reinvention of cities and urban transformations
- Digital life and the post-human
- Emerging forms of global creative practice
- Culture and the aesthetic
Series titles include:
1 The Consequences of Global Disasters
Edited by Anthony Elliott and Eric L. Hsu
2 A New Industrial Future?
3D printing and the reconfiguring of production, distribution, and consumption
Thomas Birtchnell and John Urry
3 Opting In and Out
On womens careers and new lifestyles
Ingrid Biese
4 Culture, Identity and Intense Performativity
Being in the zone
Edited by Tim Jordan, Brigid McClure and Kath Woodward
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2017 selection and editorial matter, Tim Jordan, Brigid McClure and Kath Woodward; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Tim Jordan, Brigid McClure and Kath Woodward to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Jordan, Tim, editor. | McClure, Brigid, editor. | Woodward, Kath,
editor.
Title: Culture, identity and intense performativity : being in the zone /
edited by Tim Jordan, Brigid McClure and Kath Woodward.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2017.Identifiers:
LCCN 2016036087| ISBN 9781138185920 (hardback) | ISBN
9781315644158 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: SuccessPsycholgical aspects. | SuccessSocial aspects. |
Performance. | Emotions. | Identity (Philosophical concept)
Classification: LCC BF637.S8 C85 2017 | DDC 302/.1dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036087
ISBN: 978-1-138-18592-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64415-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Heidi Ashton joined the Centre for Labour Market Studies in 2007 as a Graduate Teaching Assistant having previously worked extensively in the creative industries as a professional freelance dancer, choreographer and teacher of performance and developmental psychology. She holds a BSc in Psychology from The Open University and a Masters in Occupational Psychology from Birkbeck, University of London. Her PhD was completed at the University of Leicester. Heidi is a member of the British Psychological Society and a founding member of its Sport and Exercise division. Her research is interdisciplinary with core research interests including work in the creative industries, occupational identity, relationships between creative work, policy and economy, workplace learning and socialization, career transitions, socialization in training, and qualitative analysis. She is currently working collaboratively on projects on the relationship between the creative industries and education and freelance skill development (with Prue Huddleston, Warwick University), work in the West End (with Mark Banks) and emerging studies on creative labour, precarity and resistance (with Chris Rhomberg and Heather Gautney Fordham, NYC) and creative work on cruise ships (Music and Maritime Leisure Travel Research Group).
