Mega-events and Cultural Citizenship

Consumerism, Inclusion/Exclusion and Internationalism

Cultural Inclusion (tourism culture)

• modern expos -> homogenisation, massification, building of nation-states, nationally and imperially-based industrial capitalist economies
• post-modern -> process of individualisation & de-massification, reconstruction of the state and capitalism, multi-tiered political and regulatory institutions, information and service-based economies, consumption
• development of schools, teaching professions, publicly funded schooling systems, national curriculum programs, nation-building, national or public broadcasting -> modern public culture
• societal impact in modernity: museums, art galleries, department stores, theme parks, large-scale fairs

Touristic consumerism

• visitors of expos became tourists
• -international visitors had to take mass transports (steamship, railway)
  
• -domestic visitors became 'excoursionists' (railway)
• -'event heritage' - as in Paris, the Eiffel Tower - permanent tourist attraction
  
• -importance of expos for development of tourist industry, nationally & internationally
• -archetypal tourist industry: Thomas Cook organized excursions to Great Exhibition 1851 -> development of 'Excursionist' newspaper
• visitors of expos were exposed to powerful new consumerist world-view, a life with a huge supply of buyable commodities -> commodity culture
• tourists from all over the world in order to see and consume the foreign and exotic goods
• mass public of host expo encountered foreigners and people from different cultures (diplomats, servants)
• tourism-without-the-travel (also benefited by the impact of films in early 20th century)
• growth of competitive, militaristic, xenophobic, and racist attitudes as well as tolerance, co-existence, peace between nations, and brotherhood of man
  

• 'The cosmopolitanism of the international expo event site was an exaggerated microcosm of the kind of cosmopolitanism characteristic of 19th & 20th century urbanism [...]'
• expos were designed as 'cities-in-miniature' and as 'ideal cities'
• new innovations: high tower elevator rides, cable car rides, Ferris wheels, roller coasters

Cultural Exclusion

• athletes & teams from colonised 'nations' were either excluded from international competitions, or only included as represantatives of colonial power
• ethnic prejudice, discrimination and exclusion: aristocratic and middle-class, white, male cultural preserves in sports only
• exclusion of blacks & Asians (reasons of imperialism & racial inferiority), females (physical vulnerabilty) (working-class in Britain too -> amateurism)

• expo genre accorded a second-class citizenship circumscribed by patriarchial power to women, non-white and non-Western ethnic cultures
• women and ethnic groups made positive use of expos -> autonomy, equality, inclusion and citizenship
  
• expos ->universalistic & humanistic, internationalist & nationalistic ideals and world-views
• inclusion of exclusion:
  
• women were degraded to sex-objects, with domestic and familial role and dependent marriage relationship to men
• white mal working class symbolic character
• non-white ethnic and racial groups -> subordinate entertainment roles & de-humanized as objects of racist pseudo-scientific presentations
• women had most positive benefits from expos, in contrast to blacks & ethnic minorities
• Afro-American community challenged racism & discriminatory practices -> full civil right

Class power - Workers' movement

• growing and developing industrial working-class in capitalist societies in late 19th ce, early 20th c.
• class hegemonic character of expos is either 'strong' or 'weak'
• strong: capital logic character -> capitalist ruling class (American white males)
• international expos are instruments of class control and vehicles of class propaganda
• expos as ideological weapons in the class struggle
• weak: reacreational effect of world's fairs without respect to classes

• organisation of expos by exclusionary, elitist, paternalistic basis by power networks of leading politicians, aristocrats, corporate capitalists & professionals
• expos reflected, symbolized and reproduced major class divisions, thus underlying social exclusionary character of host societies
• leaders or heads of states also organized expos (Napoleon III, Roosevelt)
• class transcendence themes: drama (production of ideological & propagandist discourses by power elites intended to inform and educate) and social peace (instrumental and ideological class appeasement aimed at promoting cooperation between classes -labour and capital-)

Sexism and Women's Movement

• presentation of women's identity and role in modern society (exhibition of their works and ideas)
  
• male abilities/spheres: science, technologies, task requiring rationality, exercise of power; public sphere, production, outside world; viewer-subject
  
• female abilities/spheres: arts, crafts, task requiring non-rational, exercise of care; private sphere, consumption, home; viewed-object
  
• sexual division at expos -> male celebration
• women's contribution to progress
• expos represented women as home-centered and family-centered
• expos were women-friendly environements, secure and entertaining
• French expos: aristocratic and bourgeois feminine aethetic of art, beauty and luxury -> women-oriented
• women formed half of visitors & were main drivers & consumers of domestic products
  
• addressed as mothers by eugenic movement & adressed as sex objects by entertainment (esp. through introduction of Midway fair zone in Chicago 1893 -> erotic shows)
• Chicago 1933 & NY 1939 expo -> 'sophisticated' strip-shows
  
• women only from white upper - and middle-class as part of organizing committees
  
• specialized Women's Buildings (pavilions devoted to arts, craft, technology - Philadelphia 1876)
• 1888: formation of US National Council for Women -> conference at Chicago expo

Expos and Racism

• 'Others' -> people who are different from host population (exotic, unusual or distinctive appearance) -> stock in trade of fairs, circuses & popular shows befor advent of expos
• 'Others' contributed to dramatic and entertaining effect of expo
  
• 4 types of human display at expos: ambassadorial, imperial, educational/pseudo-scientific, and commercial
• exotic themes: tribespeople, performances of Buffalo Bill at 1889 expo, Cody's Wild West Show -> became rituals
• science of anthropology contributed to these displays -> scientific racism
  
• bizarre cross between a zoo and freak-show -> displayal of 'Others' as pre-modern, uncivilized, or even savage (Pacific islanders, Arcitic people, native Americans, tribal people fram Africa and Asia) -> became professional groups travelling from show to show
  
• defeat of Indians in popular cultural shows symbolized
• in Europe mostly African colonies displayed
• absence of blacks as construction workers at 1876 expo Philadelphia, only for service (minstrel show and statue of a black only presence of blacks in US society)
  
• 1893 -> exclusion of black America at expo
• attempt to inform international politicians, tourists and media about racism un the US
• funding of 'Negro-Buildings'
• 'Negro Day' at 1933 Chicago exop (poorly attended)
  
• minor progress in black participation in NY expo 1939/40

Cultural Internationlism

• internationalism resumed its growth after WWI (esp. in Olympics & international sport)
• except in USSR, Germany, Italy and other imperialist nations (supernationalism)
  
• inter-war period -> international sport event culture
• expos provided a politico-cultural basis for development of Olympics
• building of international-level structures

Expos and Olympics

• expo-based Olympics in 1900, 1904, 1908
• intermediate context of mega-events
• first modern Olympic Game in Athens 1896 (purpose-built sport stadium)
• 2. Paris 1900, 3. St. Louis 1904, 4. London 1908 (helt within or with support of expo )
  
• early Olympics rather chaotic & unsatisfactory
  
• De Coubertin (founder of modern Olympics) & IOC determined Olympics to be held in 4-year cycle
• first Olympics failed (few spectators and participants)-> since then Olympics were never strongly associated with expos
• expo bids used to stage Olympic games

Institutionalisation of International Public Culture

• developing calendar of international events and sport events
• Stockholm Olympics1912 first held independently of an expo
• 1907 France called for international agreement
  
• 1928 in Paris international convention based on Berlin agreement was signed -> rules governing financing, types and frequency of expos
• creation of executive bureau -> BIE (International Bureau of Exhibitions)
• FIFA, IOC, NOC
  

Difficulties

• I don't really get the meaning of nation-states. What does it really mean? It has been mentioned earlier in Chapter 2 as well.