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Paper short abstract:

Drop outs in Hawai‘i smoke a lot of cannabis. It is central to the local economy, and local ideas about pleasure and health. Examining intergenerational difference regarding the properties of ‘good’ ‘erb (cannabis), this paper explores continuity and change in the role this substance plays in living ‘counter’ to American ‘culture’.

Paper long abstract:

Cannabis, or 'erb as it is known locally, is a substance which is economic mainstay, medicine and recreational drug of choice within a group of 'drop outs' in Hawai'i. Drawing on ethnography with Americans who have relocated to the islands in order to 'drop out' of US society - to consciously position themselves on the periphery, if one will, of American cultural life, economy and territory - I seek to unpack the significance of this substance to this community. As recreational drug of choice for almost all, source of income for many, and central to health and wellbeing for some, it cuts across work, pleasure, everyday social interaction and personal wellbeing. 'Erb also operates, I contend, as an icon of 1960s counterculture, as a consumable, ingestible, embodied icon of dropping out of a perceived American mainstream.

This paper thus explores the place of cannabis within this drop out community in relation to both its economic, social and health roles, and as substance that facilitates the embodiment of a 1960s (-inspired) countercultural identity. Yet this assertion of iconic status masks important intergenerational differences between young elite growers and their older, countercultural counterparts. Cannabis operates as both marker of continuity with a 1960s counterculture, but also rupture; while it is universally consumed across the generations, ideas about what constitutes 'good' 'erb expose profound intergenerational differences about what is being embodied in the act of smoking and the capacity of cannabis to (continue to) facilitate the embodiment of a countercultural 'drop out' identity.

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Paper short abstract:

Faced with unprecedented levels of underemployment and other harsh realities of post-crisis life out of school, young adults in America are coming to terms with what seems to be an inflated American Dream. This thesis examines this process among participants of the Occupy movement of Austin, Texas.

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, protest movements largely supported by disaffected youth swept across the world, prominent among these the American-born Occupy movement. This research examines the perceptions and influences of post-crisis America among young adults in the Occupy movement of Austin, Texas. I argue that the movement, rather than a vehicle for societal change, is primarily used by young Austinians as a tool for personal transformation. Disillusioned by the promises of capitalism and the American dream, they seek to re-imagine themselves by recreating the world around them according to individually constructed ideas of authenticity and morality. Here, the desire for authenticity comes to mean a drive towards independence and self-governance, an interpretation typical of the historically anti-governmental Texan imagination. I show that the contemporary versions of these sentiments are informed by the perceived effects of a global economical crisis as a political and systemic failure. The resulting searches for autonomy are further encouraged by the spatiality of the South, in which space and place encapsulate simultaneously potentials for alienation and displacement as well as for authenticity and belonging through localization. Participation in Occupy, then, is about taking an uncompromising stance towards personally identified sources of alienation and setting out to "find a place" in both existential and spatial ways. I propose that this search for authenticity can be considered a kind of existential nomadism: a search for home shaped by the complex interplay between social, political, and spatial dimensions of life in the Southern United States.

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Paper short abstract:

In a southern Louisiana community cultural and economic norms are being challenged by new ideas seen as coming from ‘elsewhere’. Big oil, conservative news, and large natural disasters have intensified this debate, and two visions of the American Dream compete to legitimise the ‘real’ American.

Paper long abstract:

Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill have made the landscape of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana uniquely complex and culturally dense. This peninsula in southern Louisiana has experienced decades of obscurity, but now, with multinational oil companies, national news media, and massive natural disasters threatening to unbalance the long established cultural norms of the area, some locals fear the 'proper' order of life is being interrupted. Here, two different interpretations of the American Dream are colliding, causing a cultural crisis for many in this community. On the one hand, the long established expectations of 1950s capitalism, personal freedom, and racial segregation. One the other, incoming notions of neoliberalism, national unity, and a Black President in the White House. Conservative news media confuses this confrontation, by being trusted reporters of the 'truth', yet often giving a truth at odds with local experience. Such a context provokes questioning of the very notion of a unified vision of either an 'American Dream' or even a single 'America'. Instead, the experience of these local men suggests a local interpretation of this dream which is at odds with a vision they see as being forced upon them by a distant, uncaring, and largely mysterious economic elite based in the 'Yankee' north. Yet an economic elite which they feel the need to support and maintain through tax breaks, free-markets, and the limitation of the welfare state. Throughout this, one thing local people are certain of, is that they are truly what is described as a 'real' American.

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Paper short abstract:

The traditional nuclear family is central to the idea of the American Dream. This paper explores how the impossible task of living up to patriotic, white, heterosexual family identities in the United States can create vulnerabilities which can be exploited by militarism. It addresses how militarism operates on the fear, hope and failure of our most intimate relationships as we develop into adults.

Paper long abstract:

Militarism is Manifest Destiny in motion. Both abroad and at 'home', American expansionism is fueled by the belief in American exceptionalism. At the core of the American dream are notions of patriotic, white, heterosexual family values, which fits nicely into the logic of capitalism.

This paper explores how in the gap between the nuclear family ideal and peoples' lived reality, dwells a vulnerability which is exploited by military recruitment and other forms of domination, which operate in the shroud of material and emotional empowerment. The nuclear family ideal and militarism have a mutually exploitative relationship, in that the military encourages soldiers to marry and have children (in same sex marriages), and the violence inherent in the traditional family structure makes it a breeding ground for future soldiers. This paper describes the nuclear family ideal and the notion of the American soldier as enablers of the American Dream, and are both seen to be forms of fantasy which serve political agendas of the rich, while simultaneously continuing spiraling oppressions of individual citizens and communities.