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Woke. Coming from the United States, the term woke is being aware of social and racial inequalities, homophobia and sexism, or even environmental issues, and to look critically at these injustices and systemic issues. The claims and the are clearly laudable. While it is usually associated with anti-capitalism, this supposed woke ideology is at the heart of the strategy of many companies. Should we see this as a political and societal victory of wokism or rather a commercial or rather a commercial and consumerist deviation of this progressive movement? I propose to question these strategies of the industry which, since the beginning of the 19th century, has adopted a supposedly enlightened behavior to prove to us that it wants to do us good. The woke capitalism is older than it seems: for two hundred years, industrialists have been diverting popular demands to their advantage, in a dangerous manipulation that tends to depoliticize them. But when industry empties our demands of meaning to serve its growth objectives, it deliberately influences our choices and steals our democratic sovereignty.
Audrey Millet is a Marie-Sklodowska Curie researcher at the University of Oslo. The Made in SweatShops project investigates how the implementation of an industrial model in the global clothing industry has led to a de-skilling of the workforce, focusing mainly on the female workforce. She has published Fabriquer le désir. Une histoire de la mode de l’Antiquité à nos jours (2020, Belin), Le livre noir de la mode. Creation, production, manipulation (2021, Les Pérégrines), Les dessous du maillot de bain. Une autre histoire du corps (2022, Les Pérégrines). Her last book is published in 2023 : Woke Washing: capitalisme, consumérisme, opportunisme.
Practical information
The seminar will be organized as a hybrid event at Håndbiblioteket on the 5th floor in Niels Treschow’s hus, University of Oslo.
Join us on Zoom by following this link.