Janneke Adema

Sustaining the Knowledge Commons: final report

This post concludes the 7-year Sustaining the Knowledge Commons (SKC) research program for which I gratefully acknowledge generous support from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through an Insight Development Grant (2014 – 2016), and Insight Grant (2016 – 2021). I also gratefully acknowledge the hard work, team spirit and initiative of the many members of the SKC team over the years – their names are listed on the About the Team page; bios reflect statuses the last time they participated in the project. Following are my key recommendations for funders (including libraries & policy-makers), takeways for future APC researchers, select portions of my final report to SSHRC, and my final thoughts and next directions.

Key recommendations for funders (including libraries & policy-makers):

  • Recommendation #1: Support small scholar-led publishers (e.g. journals and books published by or at universities and scholarly associations) to transition to open access because this sector can thrive with modest support (best economic choice) and is the sector in the best position to prioritize the values of academia over profit and achieve global equity in inclusion of scholars around the world in a global knowledge commons.
  • Recommendation #2: Support existing and emerging open access scholarly publishers reliant on open access article process charges (APCs) with caution and back-up built into policy. There are 2 main reasons for caution: there are already a large number of journals and publishers that are “no longer in DOAJ”, many of which are still publishing. While current APC publishers such as the Public Library of Science have earned top reputations for publishing quality scholarship, it is clear that the APC model has also opened a door to a for-profit sector with less than clear commitment to scholarly quality. The second reason for caution is evidence of price rises beyond inflation among commercial and professional not-for-profit APC based publishers. It is not clear that the economics of this model are sustainable. To put a back-up plan into policy, require that researchers deposit work in an open access repository. Meeting OA policy through open access publishing alone makes works available open access today with no guarantee for the future.
  • Recommendation #3: Look beyond traditional print-based formats such as journals and books. The open research SKC blog, featuring immediate release of the results of over 200 small research projects to inform decision-making in real time, and the OA APC dataverse, are illustrations of what we can do. Innovation should be a priority, not an afterthought.
  • Recommendation #4: Make global equity and inclusion a top priority in setting policy, including deciding which initiatives to support financially. The key question is: will this policy or initiative tend to facilitate a global knowledge commons that gives voice to all qualified researchers around the world, or will it further entrench existing interests?

Takeaways for future APC researchers:

  • The Sustaining the Knowledge Commons blog features a rich set of small research projects, many on individual APC-charging publishers, that are not available anywhere else. The blog will remain as is for some time and will be archived with the assistance of the University of Ottawa Library before it is decommissioned.
  • The most complete dataset in the OA APC dataverse is OA Main 2019. This is a unique contribution as journals once included (journal or publisher was once included in DOAJ) are retained from year to year. Data including APC amounts for several years derived from a number of sources is available for close to 20 thousand journals. This dataset is for serious researchers as it takes some time to read the documentation and understand the datapoints; misinterpretation would be easy given that the data is derived from multiple sources.
  • The dataset in the OA APC dataverse that includes journals for which we have data for the longest period of time is the 2011 – 2021 dataset. Most of the 2011 dataset in included in OA Main 2019, however in preparing analysis we found that some journals were missing as they had been removed from DOAJ prior to our first sampling (2014).
  • The published open data in the OA APC dataverse reflects a small portion of the data that we have collected and analyzed over the years. The reason for not publishing all of the data as open data is the complexity and extra work required to create publishable documentation. If you are looking for historical APC data for research purposes, don’t hesitate to ask what I (Heather Morrison) might have. No guarantees that what you need will match what I have.

Excerpts from the SSHRC Insight Grant final report

Summary: The purpose of the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons project was to conduct research to inform the process of transformation of the underlying economics of scholarly publishing from the demand (purchase / subscription) to the supply side (support for production) to achieve sustainable and globally equitable open access. The resource requirements for small scholar-led publishers project confirmed the modest financial needs of this sector, considered the best option to prioritize academic quality over profit. A longitudinal study of article processing charges (APCs) found that this model, working well in some sectors, nevertheless poses some challenges to academic quality as illustrated by a large number of APC-based journals and publishers in the category “no longer in the Directory of Open Access Journals”. The APC commercial and professional not-for-profit market is showing problematic signs of a tendency to increases prices beyond inflation, another reason to consider alternatives. One approach to analyzing open access policy and initiatives, based on Ostrom’s work Governing the Commons, was identified as useful to analyze policy and initiatives from the perspective of global equity (inclusion of all qualified scholars to contribute to our common knowledge). A key conclusion and recommendation is that the optimal way to achieve sustainable and equitable high quality academic publishing for traditional publication forms such as journals and books, prioritizing academic values over profit, is to transition economic support to prioritize small scholar-led publication, and in particularly the university sector. The open research approach employed in this project illustrates the benefits of going beyond traditional forms optimized for print. Major findings have been consistently quickly published on the course blog, supporting decision-makers engaged in the process of transition, and open data shared via the dataverse.

Outcomes: Sustaining the knowledge commons (SKC) has provided independent third-party evidence to support the growing non-commercial, scholar-led sector of scholarly publishing. SKC research demonstrates the desirability of supporting this sector from an economic point of view as overall less costly, more equitable, and in a good position to prioritize academic quality over profit. The internet has created an environment in which universities and scholarly societies can, with reasonable ease and modest support, create, sustain and globally disseminate their own publications. For example, in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as of December 2021, the country with the highest number of open access journals is Indonesia, with 1,896 titles, followed by, in order, the UK (1,885 titles), Brazil (1,636), the U.S. (969), Spain (882), Poland (785), and Iran (662). DOAJ is a far more diverse collection of titles, linguistically and culturally, than is found in typical library packages in countries like Canada. This evidence is useful to policy-makers such as research funders and services that support scholarly publishing such as libraries and library consortia.

Audiences: The primary audiences that can benefit from the research conducted by the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons project are the organizations ultimately responsible for funding the production and dissemination of scholarly works – universities and other research organizations, their libraries and library consortia, research funding agencies, scholarly societies, and individual academic researchers who support scholarly publication through their labour and research funding. Academics, students, and the general public benefit indirectly through open access to scholarly works; for example, when health care practitioners have access to the results of medical research, we all benefit from improved evidence-based practice.

Research products: https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/ and https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/oaapc are, respectively, a research blog and open dataverse that demonstrate the open research approach employed in the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons project. These are the most comprehensive resources for outputs from this project. The blog features over 200 original research posts, of which most are brief original research pieces written by research assistants and associates under the supervision of the Principle Investigator. Only a small fraction of this output would be found in traditional research formats such as journal articles and books.

The dataverse: The https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/oaapc dataverse features open data and documentation from the longitudinal open access APC study that exemplifies the open data approach. The datasets are the most complete source of historical information for many journals and publishers that are no longer active, open access, and/or listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, and will make it possible for future researchers to conduct robust longitudinal studies in future. OA Main 2019 final is the most complete dataset (close to 20,000 journals, up to 280 data points / journal, range 2011 – 2019). The most recent dataset is 2011_2021_APCs_open_data.

Final thoughts and new directions: finally, I would like to thank all of the readers of this blog and particularly those who took the time to comment, whether on the blog or on the listservs and other projects that I have participated in over the years, particularly the Global Open Access List, Scholcomm, the Radical Open Access list, and the Open Access Tracking Project, and everyone – all the authors, editors, publishers, research funders and activists – who have moved OA forward through its first generation. My perspective is that OA has now moved into a second generation that is quite different from the first and leadership is from the institutions and organizations that provide the support for scholarly publishing – universities & their libraries and library consortia, research funders and scholarly publishers, and is no longer reliant on individual activists like me. This is a good thing, an accomplishment in and of itself and one that bodes well for ongoing transition to full open access. On a personal note, while I remain available should my expertise (or datasets) be needed, it is my intention to shift my research to one or more areas more in need of attention, particularly in the area of information policy.

Cite as: Morrison, H. (2021). Sustaining the knowledge commons: final report. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons Dec. 22, 2021 https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2021/12/22/sustaining-the-knowledge-commons-final-report/

Minor Compositions

Welcome Home

Welcome Home Clarrie & Blanche Pope Graphic novel about squatting, unrequited love and lost struggles, written with humor and driven by hope  A group of squatters occupy an empty flat in a condemned tower in London, aiming to unite their neighbors to resist the demolition. Weaving together confused memories, Welcome Home moves between the squat and our protagonist’s work in … Continue reading →
Janneke Adema

Guide décolonisé et pluriversel de formation à la recherche en sciences sociales et humaines

Sous la direction de Florence Piron et Élisabeth Arsenault

Pour accéder au livre en version html, cliquez ici.

Ce livre/site est composé d’une série de courts chapitres synthétiques, accompagnés de références commentées, qui nourriront la réflexion des lecteurs et lectrices sur le type de recherche qu’ils et elles souhaitent faire et qui les accompagneront dans la rédaction de leur projet de recherche en mode « formation à distance ».

Un projet soutenu par l’APSOHA, l’ASBC, l’UQTR et le CIRAM de l’Université Laval.

Couverture réalisée par Kate McDonnell, huile sur toile du peintre néerlandais Piet Mondrian : « De rode boom (Arbre rouge) », 1908-10. Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening;_Red_Tree

Date de publication : novembre 2021

***

Tables des matières

Préface – Élisabeth Arsenault (à venir)

Introduction – Florence Piron

Module 1 : Pour quoi et pour qui faire de la recherche?

  1. Science, colonialisme et extraversion (histoire décoloniale de la science) – Jacques Michel Gourgues
  2. Connaissance, engagement, intérêts et positionnement axiologique (bousculer le positivisme institutionnel) – Olivier Leclerc
  3. Les impacts et effets de la recherche scientifique sur la société (intro aux STS) – Mélissa Lieutenant-Gosselin (à venir)
  4. L’analyse des politiques publiques de l’enseignement supérieur – Jean Bernatchez
  5. Responsabilité sociale des universitaires et développement local durable : la recherche participative communautaire – Budd Hall et Rajesh Tandon
  6. Utilisation et mobilisation des connaissances – Jean Ramdé

Module 2 : Du mémoire au projet de recherche, en passant par la thèse : les métiers de la recherche

  1. Les conditions de la recherche dans les universités des Suds et du Nord – Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou (à venir)
  2. Réduisez les incertitudes! Faire une thèse ou un mémoire : vocation à la recherche, recherche d’un grade et choix de l’université – Dali Serge Lida
  3. De l’idée de la thèse à la soutenance : les étapes et les formats, suivi d’une chronique d’une expérience personnelle à l’Université Yaoundé 1 – Abdoulaye Anne et Alassa Fouapon
  4. S’organiser : faire un chronogramme, s’adapter aux contraintes de la réalité et s’autoévaluer sans souffrir – Alessandra Banci (à venir)
  5. Les métiers de la recherche : enquêter, écrire, publier, communiquer, évaluer, enseigner, former – Francesco Cavatorta (à venir)
  6. Monter un projet de recherche et le faire financer – Judicaël Alladatin, Mahutin Anselme Houessigbede, Abdoul Kafid Toko Koutogui, Appoline Mêvognon Fonton, Augustin Gnanguenon et Lucien Médard Dahouè

Module 3 : Lire des textes de sciences sociales et humaines et organiser ses lectures

  1. Pourquoi et comment lire de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales? – Élisabeth Arsenault, Rency Inson Michel et Bi Vagbé Gethème Irié
  2. Quoi lire? Intégrer des textes des pays des Suds dans les bibliographies – Isaline Bergamaschi (à venir)
  3. Faire une recherche documentaire dans le web scientifique libre – Audrey Groleau
  4. La place de la recension des écrits dans la recherche – Zakari Liré (à venir)
  5. Construire une fiche de lecture – Sylvette Piga Bahiré et Abdoulaye Anne
  6. Un logiciel de gestion bibliographique : Zotero

Module 4 : Choisir une posture éthique et une approche théorique

  1. Définir une posture de recherche, entre constructivisme et positivisme – Maryvonne Charmillot
  2. Production des connaissances et critique décoloniale – Raewyn Connell
  3. La critique féminisme du positivisme institutionnel – (à venir)
  4. Le pluriversalisme et les épistémologies des Suds et des peuples autochtones – Sambou Ndiaye (à venir)
  5. Intégrer des savoirs locaux non scientifiques des femmes et des hommes dans la recherche (éviter les injustices épistémiques) – Isabel Heck et Baptiste Godrie
  6. De la pluridisciplinarité à l’interdisciplinarité : une méthodologie ancrée – Fernand Bationo
  7. Cadres théoriques et valeurs

Module 5 : Écrire en sciences sociales et humaines

  1. Le je, le nous, la neutralité, la narrativité, la démonstration et l’écriture épicène : trouver sa voix – Priscilla Boyer
  2. Réflexivité et savoirs situés – Marie-Claude Bernard
  3. L’art de citer et le plagiat – Gilbert Willy Tio Babena
  4. Les outils de travail : écriture numérique collaborative et logiciels libres – Djossè Roméo Tessy
  5. Le plurilinguisme en science : pourquoi pas? – Léonie Tatou (à venir)
  6. Du plan au brouillon : l’essentiel pour structurer ses idées et éviter le syndrome de la page blanche – Frédérick Madore et Andrée-Ann Brassard
  7. Les outils d’aide à l’écriture : orthographe et syntaxe – Léonie Tatou
  8. Le contenu et le style d’une bibliographie – Bernard Pochet (à venir)

Module 6 : Construire une problématique de recherche et l’utiliser

  1. Qu’est-ce qu’une problématique de recherche? – (à venir)
  2. Analyser et opérationnaliser un concept – Marie Brossier (à venir)
  3. Analyse critique d’un article et d’un débat – Sivane Hirsch
  4. L’art de la démonstration en sciences sociales – Baptiste Godrie
  5. Quelle est la place du contexte dans une recherche? – Estelle Kouokam Magne
  6. Pourquoi et comment faire un terrain? – Lara Gautier et Oumar Mallé Samb

Module 7 : Approches méthodologiques et stratégies d’enquête

  1. L’approche qualitative et ses principales stratégies d’enquêtes – Honorine Pegdwendé Sawadogo
  2. Le journal de bord comme outil de terrain – Alice Vanlint
  3. L’approche participative, la recherche-action et leurs principales stratégies d’enquête et d’inclusion des groupes subalternisés – Baptiste Godrie et Isabel Heck
  4. L’approche quantitative et statistique et ses principales stratégies d’enquête – Judicaël Alladatin, Talagbé Gabin Akpo et Mohamadou Salifou
  5. Les approches inspirées des épistémologies autochtones et relationnelles et leurs principales stratégies d’enquête – Noémie Gonzalez
  6. Les approches au design complexe et leurs principales stratégies d’enquêtes – Valéry Ridde
  7. Les outils numériques d’enquête – Célya Gruson Daniel

Module 8 : Stratégies d’analyse des informations collectées

  1. Saturation, triangulation et catégorisation des données collectées – Honorine Pegdwendé Sawadogo
  2. Analyse de la singularité : récits de vie, histoire orale et méthode clinique – Jean Jacques Demba et Marie-Claude Bernard
  3. Analyse itérative et théorie/théorisation enracinée – Raquel Fernandez-Iglesias (à venir)
  4. Analyse de contenu (documentaire, entrevues, etc.) – Marietou Niang (à venir)
  5. L’art de l’interprétation des résultats – Pietro Marzo
  6. Les outils numériques d’analyse de données (logiciels, bases de données) – Célya Gruson Daniel

Module 9 : Considérations déontologiques et juridiques

  1. La conduite responsable en recherche, l’éthique et les rapports avec les participant-e-s – Laurent Jérôme (à venir)
  2. L’intégrité en recherche : résister aux conflits d’intérêts, fraudes, pots de vin et autres formes de corruption de la recherche – Neïla Abtroun Sihem et Bryn William Jones
  3. Le droit d’auteur, la signature et la propriété intellectuelle – Marc Couture
  4. La gestion et l’ouverture des données de la recherche – Matthieu Noucher
  5. Faire de la recherche dans un partenariat nord-sud – Valéry Ridde

Module 10 : Diffusion et restitution des savoirs créés

  1. Diffusion et restitution des savoirs créés – Maryvonne Charmillot
  2. Écrire et publier un article scientifique – Gilbert Willy Tio Babena
  3. La publication et la diffusion en libre accès – Marc Couture
  4. Présentation PowerPoint, vidéos, théâtre et affiches scientifiques – Zein Fakih (à venir)
  5. Les dispositifs de médiation science-société – Mélody Faury
  6. Créer des ressources éducatives libre avec Wikipédia – Marie Martel
  7. Évaluation de l’impact d’une recherche – Nelson Sylvestre (à venir)

Information pour les personnes inscrites à la formation en ligne

  • Le fonctionnement de la formation à distance
  • Un projet pédagogique basé sur le partage des savoirs
  • Formation et gestion des équipes

Janneke Adema

Housekeeping: SKC project status

The Sustaining the Knowledge Commons project was made possible through a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2014 – 2016) and a SSHRC Insight Grant (2016 – 2021). SSHRC has graciously granted a one-year extension for project completion due to COVID. Between now and spring 2022, the work of SKC will focus on completing projects already started, blog wrap-up, and a final report and summary. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the SKC team over the years, read, shared and/or commented on posts.

INC

POST-PRECARITY CAMP – DAY THREE

On the third day of the Post-Precarity Autumn Camp, the participants had the chance to get an insight into alternative financial pathways of the digital art world. Geert Lovink of the Institute of Network Cultures gave an introduction to the research network MoneyLab that seeks to explore alternative revenue models, as well as to pose the ever-relevant questions of (re)defining the concept of money, especially in the context of the possibilities and limitations the digital monetary infrastructures provide. Succeeding that, artist and researcher Rosa Menkman delved into the complexities of cryptocurrencies and the digital artwork circulation as conceptualized through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). During this workshop, the participants gained insight into the curious structures of online art markets and possible strategies they might utilize for capitalizing off of them. The second part of the day was devoted to embedding the workshop into the social, historical, and artistic contexts of its locality. After lunch, Marisella de Cuba presented the activities of the organization We Promise that is devoted to challenging and overcoming colonial, racist, and discriminatory currents in Hoorn. The day was wrapped up with an art walk with Martijn Aerts which, despite the shifty and at times unfavorable weather, combined the playful with critical during the tour of the historical and artistic markers of the town.

 

PARTICIPANTS’ REFLECTIONS OF THE DAY, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

     
INC

What’s Up with WhatsApp? A South African case study

In this blog series, INC research fellows Natalie Dixon and Klasien van de Zandschulp explore a burgeoning intimate surveillance culture in neighbourhoods across the world.  At the core of this research is a flourishing network of surveillance technologies produced by Silicon Valley and perfectly tailored to a vigilant and paranoid home-owner. This matters. Because being watched by the state is one thing, but being watched by your neighbours invites myriad more questions. In this second essay, we present a WhatsApp case study from South Africa. Admittedly it’s an extreme one, couched in a violent history of racial segregation. 

We arrive in a leafy, affluent neighbourhood in north-western Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. Klasien and I are here to interview Mariette* (*not her real name) about her WhatsApp group. Unlike many of the residents in this area, we are on foot slowly making our way to Mariette’s house, taking our time to get to know the neighbourhood. The views from this suburb are impressive; it has a clear vantage point, located on a small hilltop overlooking the city. Here, the house prices are some of the highest in Johannesburg. Browsing local real estate advertisements you’ll come across words like ‘those lucky enough’ to own property in this ‘enviable location’, or ‘best kept secret’. Properties in the neighbourhood have high-perimeter walls and giant Jacaranda trees cast shade over manicured gardens. The streets are quiet and neighbours walk their dogs and children ride their bicycles. To us, this Johannesburg neighbourhood seems pretty idyllic. 

This idyllic setting comes at a price though. There is an omnipresent private security company that patrols the streets of the neighbourhood in large black utility vehicles fitted with enormous spotlights. We notice these, they are hard to miss, lingering slowly as they cruise up and down the streets. Paid for by the neighbours, these security vehicles scan the area for any suspicious activity. For a short while the driver even seems to trail us, we are out of place and walking too slowly it seems. Mariette’s neighbourhood is enclosed, which is not unusual in Johannesburg. This means there is only one street entrance for all cars. With permission from the city of Johannesburg, the residents have paid to erect a large palisade fence that closes off all other entrances to the suburb in an effort to prevent crime. A small number of pedestrian gates are left unlocked during the day. The sole remaining traffic entrance is fitted with a security-controlled boom where a guard is stationed 24 hours a day. When we arrive at the boom, we have to declare ourselves and let the guard know that we’re coming to see Mariette. 

 

For a short while the driver even seems to trail us, we are out of place and walking too slowly it seems.

 

But alongside the security boom, ancient trees, beautifully trimmed lawns and driveways, lies another layer of urban infrastructure here: an electronic layer of communication.  The neighbourhood  has an active WhatsApp group with about 180 households where residents and the security patrol-unit share information with each other and note anything out of the ordinary. We meet Mariette in her spacious home overlooking Johannesburg’s much-loved urban forest. She is the admin of the neighbourhood’s WhatsApp group. Her job is to moderate and direct conversation between group members. Mariette has a very calm and assertive energy, which is probably why the group voted her to manage their communication. Hailing from a financial background, Mariette used to analyse risk for a living and is adept at making calculated decisions for the best possible outcomes. She exudes an air of decisiveness and resolution in her communication. These are handy attributes in a group admin, who often has to quickly negotiate very complex neighbourhood dynamics.

Closed suburb in Johannesburg

the entrance to the neighbourhood

Mariette starts our conversation by recounting a story of how neighbours in her area used to introduce themselves to the neighbourhood in the past, decades before the start of the WhatsApp group. Usually an invitation was extended to the wife of the new couple to join a few ladies for afternoon tea. Using a trusted neighbourhood ritual involving milk tart and Rooibos tea, the ladies would gently exchange questions and welcome the newest resident. The rituals and gender dynamics have certainly changed since then. As Mariette describes, “Now, people introduce themselves on the WhatsApp group and we all chime in to say hello and answer any questions they might have. There are some people I talk to quite often in the group but I’ve never met them. If they walked past me in the street I just wouldn’t recognise them”. 

 

“There are some people I talk to quite often in the group but I’ve never met them. If they walked past me in the street I just wouldn’t recognise them”

 

Mariette’s neighbourhood WhatsApp group was formed during a crime wave in their area in 2013. The year the group formed, neighbours reported 13 burglaries, 17 robberies and 10 car thefts to their local police station. Mariette describes how in some of these instances, neighbours cried out to their WhatsApp group for help, fearful of being attacked in their homes. Group members reported a car hijacking in the neighbourhood that involved children. Neighbours anxiously recounted scenes of a housebreaking. Mariette describes how the WhatsApp group became a de facto panic button as neighbours turned to the group first, before their security company or even the police, when anything happened. Often, messages were sent to the group to verify strange sounds and account for cars and people in the neighbourhood. Did you hear that? Was it a firecracker or  a gunshot? However, in the early set-up phase of the group, members also expressed feelings of safety. Members remarked that they felt at ease already knowing that others were ‘on watch’. Group members often made themselves available to others in the neighbourhood. In one instance Mariette describes how a neighbour who wasn’t home asked if someone could check on their house when the alarm sounded. Various group members replied to this call for help, showing the group’s responsiveness and care.

Security in Johannesburg neighbourhood

Security in the streets of the neighbourhood

More than twenty years after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, artist William Kentridge observes that “Race and class divisions are with us as strongly as ever. A happy ending is by no means assured. There is a daily, low-grade civil war at every stop street. The incidences of racial, verbal and physical abuse alert us to the rages that still burn inside. They are shameful to all of us”. Kentridge names some of the central issues that exist in contemporary South African society and often find expression in the context of neighbourhoods and their WhatsApp groups. The most glaring of these issues is race relations, which, when set against a historical backdrop of institutional racial segregation under Apartheid in South Africa, presents a very unique case study. Writing in the TimesLive newspaper in 2014, South African journalist Tanya Farber exposed the coded language that many South Africans use in their WhatsApp groups that have become taken for granted as part of a system of civilian policing. Farber described a mode of racial profiling in neighbourhood WhatsApp groups that employs phrases like ‘bravo male’ or abbreviations such as ‘BM’ to  talk about black males or ‘CM’ to talk about coloured males. Similarly, burglaries are described as ‘home invasions’ adding to a military style vocabulary that has become routine in these groups. Unsurprisingly, Mariette’s group has also adopted this style of language which is often initiated by their private security company who are also in the WhatsApp group.

 

South African journalist Tanya Farber exposed the coded language that many South Africans use in their WhatsApp groups that have become taken for granted as part of a system of civilian policing. 

 

Notably, Mariette’s neighbourhood has four times the median annual income of its closest neighbouring district, where 23% of that area’s population have no household income. Neighbourhoods in South Africa that can afford to employ private security companies have 24-hour patrols,  guarding their streets and houses. These private security companies, alongside residents, have come to determine how notions of space and movement are reconfigured in the neighbourhood, facilitated by the neighbourhood’s WhatsApp group. 

This reconfiguration creates a certain privatisation of urban space, which doesn’t only happen in South Africa but with the country’s history this phenomenon can be more uniquely considered. As a result of the pressure of maintaining a presence in all neighbourhoods of post-apartheid South Africa in 1994, police were redistributed to previously under-policed black areas. As a result, wealthier, formerly whites-only neighbourhoods turned to private security to manage access control and crime prevention. This form of privatisation has contributed to a particular narrative around space where streets and neighbourhoods are often treated as a small territory. Neighbours start to govern that territory as their own, warding off those who they deem to be strangers and don’t belong, thereby securing ‘their neighbourhood’.  

Enclosed neighbourhood Johannesburg

The gate closing off the neighbourhood in Johannesburg

The feminist theorist Sara Ahmed wrote that a neighbourhood can enter public conversations as an entity ‘already in crisis’. In the context of Mariette’s neighbourhood, this idea is easily understood by the legacy of racial segregation and the violence of the apartheid era that still haunts public spaces. Ahmed goes further to suggest that the neighbourhood is not simply a space defined by economic and class commonalities. Beyond these measures the neighbourhood is also bound together as a site of collective panic. An incident in Mariette’s neighbourhood perfectly illustrates this point. 

A stranger, allegedly drunk and stoned, stumbled into the suburb. A neighbour spotted the man and alerted the neighbourhood via the WhatsApp group. The chat lit up as neighbours reacted strongly to the stranger in their space. They coordinated a plan of action via the chat, to remove him from their streets. Using a mixture of CCTV camera footage and the WhatsApp group chat, neighbours posted pictures and pinpointed the movements of the man as he walked through the streets and passed by their homes. Panic escalated quickly and so did the neighbourhood’s reactions. A young neighbour volunteered himself to physically remove the man from the neighbourhood, grabbing a paintball gun for protection. He was joined by another neighbour who eagerly reassured the group they had the situation under control. 

The stranger had not threatened or disturbed anyone in the neighbourhood but when the men caught up with him they shot him with the paintball gun. Lying stunned on the floor, the “stranger” was held down by the duo while the group called their security company for back up.  When the security officers arrived they then tasered the man. The events were all posted into the group chat and various neighbours commented. One neighbour excitedly remarked that she wished she could have been there to witness the action. Neighbours congratulated the men for their bravery. Later the South African police arrived and released the man, to the dismay of the group. The police warned the neighbours not to take matters into their own hands. The neighbours were incredulous and the group buzzed with messages of irritation and frustration.  

The WhatsApp conversations of Mariette’s neighbourhood are, in part, a reflection of  the general state of insecurity and fear about crime in South Africa. The country’s crime statistics are amongst the highest in the world. In one year, from 2019-2020, 2.3 million South Africans experienced a house breaking or burglary. It seems many South Africans are willing to give up certain freedoms, like privacy, open access and free movement in exchange for tighter controls and constant surveillance if it means they feel safer. The results show across the country in fortified neighbourhoods with vigilant WhatsApp groups using military codes to communicate with each other. It is important to emphasise that fear of crime in South Africa is not unique to white South Africans. It is felt  across all socioeconomic and race groups. However, South African researchers argue that this enclave living in enclosed neighbourhoods breeds more feelings of mistrust and paranoia in neighbourhoods, as residents limit social mixing. The local neighbourhood WhatsApp group reveals the panicky potential of neighbourhoods driven both by actual crime and the fear of crime.

 

The local neighbourhood WhatsApp group reveals the panicky potential of neighbourhoods driven both by actual crime and the fear of crime.

 

In Mariette’s neighbourhood fear and paranoia are circulated through WhatsApp and seem to accelerate the urgency of the security situation and amplify the perceived notion of neighbourhood precarity. This fear and anxiety may also relate to how the neighbourhood perceives a threat. Canadian media theorist Brian Massumi argues that fear can be seen to enlarge any existing or implied threat. Massumi claims that in this way, emotions can be elevated above facts or even come to stand in for them. He writes that, ‘The felt reality of the threat is so superlatively real that it translates into a felt certainty about the world, even in the absence of other grounding for it in the observable world …. The affect-driven logic of the would-have/could-have is what discursively ensures that the actual facts will always remain an open case, for all pre-emptive intents and purposes’. 

This is an important point, that fear and paranoia can be circulated in groups and can be exaggerated along the way. Like Massumi suggests, these emotions may even be privileged above the facts. In more extreme contexts, this can have disastrous consequences. In 2018 in India’s north-eastern state of  Assam, two men were killed by a mob of local residents. The men, Nilotpal Das and Abijeet Nath, an audio engineer and a digital artist respectively, had stopped in a village to ask for directions. Unbeknownst to Das and Nath, the village was in a state of hyper-vigilance towards outsiders after a series of child kidnappings in the area. A series of disturbing WhatsApp messages had been circulating amongst villagers festering a  deep sense of suspicion and paranoia. The mob suspected Das and Nath were the kidnappers and the two were subsequently beaten to death. The killing was also filmed on a mobile phone and later circulated on WhatsApp amongst locals.  The police subsequently confirmed that the kidnapping messages, which contained a video of a child purportedly being snatched, were entirely fake.

Dr. Natalie Dixon is an INC research fellow and  founder & cultural insights director at affect lab, a women-led creative studio and research practice based in Amsterdam. Her work explores questions of gender, race and belonging through the lens of technology. Alongside her creative partner, Klasien van de Zandschulp, they are the creators of Good Neighbours.  

INC

POST-PRECARITY AUTUMN CAMP – DAY ONE

Twenty participants of Post-precarity Autumn Camp, jointly organized by the Platform BK, Institute of Network Cultures, and Hotel Maria Kappel have gathered in Hotel Maria Kappel in Hoorn to commence a five-day journey into the intricacies of overcoming the late-capitalist challenges artists encounter in aims to keep their practice alive and prosperous. The topic of the first day entailed working in the gig economy. Silvio Lorusso, designer, researcher, and author of Entreprecariat: Everyone is an Entrepreneur. Nobody is Safe. kicked off the day’s program with a lecture on the popular freelance platform Fiverr. Silvio analyzed how user interface design, as well as imagery on the platform, represent as well as shape labour relations and provide novel meanings of the role of the freelancer. Following that, artist and researcher (as well as gig-worker) Alina Lupu reflected on her working and artistic practice that merged her income-earning on the food delivery platform Deliveroo with her artistic work on labour and mobilization of union movements that she was a part of. As a part of her workshop, participants presented their various funding streams during the years, which posited the professional history as strangely intimate, enabling the participants to overcome the salary taboo – one of the main capitalist instruments of obedience. Tirza Kater presented a brief history and activities of Hotel Maria Kappel and the day concluded with a grounded Mindfulness workshop by Susan.

SIDE JOB HISTORY OF THE PARTICIPANTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Sounding Out!

 “Let’s check in with Marabel May”:  Audience Positioning, Nostalgia, and Format in Amanda Lund’s The Complete Woman? Podcast Series

Promote International Podcast Day

In honor of International Podcast Day on 30 September, Sounding Out! brings you Pod-Tember (and Pod-Tober too, actually, now that we’re bi-weekly) a series of posts exploring different facets of the audio art of the podcast, which we have been putting into those earbuds since 2011. Enjoy! –JS

I’ve listened to an inordinate about of podcasts in the past year and half; the number of hours would be shocking. I’ve written about this previously: how audio, friendly voices in my ears, was a more comforting medium than television or film. In early 2021, Vulture’s Nicholas Quah published findings about the continuing rise of podcasts, suggesting that American audiences are intensifying their interest in the medium. He writes, “The case began to be made that podcasting, more so than many other new media infrastructures, was uniquely suited to meeting the moment,” suggesting that the pandemic has buoyed the medium extensively. His findings also show that podcast audiences are engaging more directly and are growing in diversity. The running joke about the medium is that everyone has a podcast. I certainly do. Comedians do. Talk show hosts do. Politicians do. In a recent episode of Bitch Sesh: A Real Housewives Breakdown Podcast, hosts Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider joke that now every Real Housewife feels the need to start her own podcast, too.

In this 2021 moment, the series The Complete Woman? has become more relevant than ever, particularly in relation to the rise of conversations about the “Karen,” and a particular kind of white woman who attempts to wield social and racialized power. The podcast is marked as a “Baby Boomer” parody – or a fictional show directed at a fictional Baby Boomer audience. It’s eviscerating that culture, however, in its caricaturing of Marabel May and her friends, interrogating contemporary conversations about whiteness and middleclass-ness; its dark humor lies not in outdated gender roles, but in how incredibly close to home it all hits. It’s not a distant past, but a current reality.

Record Vintage Record Player Music Edited 2020, Image courtesy of www.songsimian.com

The Complete Woman podcast directly destabilizes nostalgia, even as it draws on older audio formats. In the series, comedian Amanda Lund parodies real-life mid 20th-century marriage self-help author Marabel Morgan, who promoted women’s deference to their husbands through evangelical Christianity – her book is titled The Total Woman, as mentioned by Vulture writer Nathan Rabin, a critical enthusiast of Lund’s series. The fictional Marabel May (voiced by Lund) is a housewife living in 1960s America with her husband, Freck (Matt Gourley). The Complete Woman series is set up as audio companions – diegetically understood as vinyl records – to Marabel’s book of the same name, which she penned after successfully saving her “disaster” of a marriage. She claims, “I believe it’s possible for any woman to manipulate her husband into adoring her in matter of weeks.” Each episode of the series focuses on a different aspect of womanhood or features a “checking-in” with Marabel and her “neighborhood gal” friends, aggressive Joanie (Maria Blasucci), muddled Barbara (Stephanie Allynne), and jovial divorcee Rita (Angela Trimbur).

The segments featuring Marabel chatting with her neighborhood girlfriends are particularly insightful, as each woman expresses her own warped version of the mid-century American marriage. They also combine the outdated instructional segments with more modern casual conversations, highlighting The Complete Woman’s addressing of women’s emotional labor, as well conventional housework. These segments also illuminate the distinctly female-driven nature of the series, as these voice actresses tend to improvise the discussions at hand. The back-and-forth between these women is both satirical and demonstrative of a sense of fun in their parody, and, at times, sincere friendship behind-the-scenes. Though a harsh satire of women’s positions in American culture, the show reveals a sense of community as Lund features her friends, all working comedians and actresses based in Los Angeles who find creative outlets in podcasting.

Format here, is significant too. The podcast directly satirizes an older format–self-help vinyl records–and its usage – questioning the ideologies of the past and present. The series conceptual set-up is nostalgic, but the content is not. The Complete Woman is unique in its use of format to draw on nostalgia for these pedantic vinyl recordings; the specificity of the audio and structure of the series suggests Lund has some fondness for these bygone formats. But the formatting is also used to critique and comment on the historical sexism and patriarchalism of marriage. While this is done with humor, the satire presented by the series sounds shockingly grounded in reality. 

Edwin L. Baron – Reduce Through Listening (1964)

To understand the concept of The Complete Woman series, let’s examine the opening episode’s introductory narration. The first episode begins with the show’s recurring “groovy” 60s-style music, signaling a move to the past. While the show is about women for women, a male narrator is the first voice heard – an immediate indicator of Marabel May’s deference to men, and thus the imaginary audience’s, as well. The narrator states, “Welcome to The Complete Woman, the audio-companion to the number one bestselling book of the same name, written by Marabel May. It’s 1963, divorce is on the rise, the tides are changing, and marriages are drowning.”

“Home is Where the Wife Is”–The Complete Woman, Episode One (2017)

The voices in the podcast sound echo-y and distant, reminiscent of listening to an old recording, which positions the listener as a participant – as if they are indeed in a struggle marriage and choosing to play this record and get advice from the fictional expert. Marabel then, in a deadpan manner, states, “Hi, I’m Marabel May, bestselling author, unaccredited marriage expert, and stay-at-home wife. Are you stuck in an unhappy marriage? Feel like there’s no hope in sight? You’re not alone. I receive millions of letters in the mail every day from sad people just like you. Here’s what they have to say.” Melancholic piano music starts playing as different voices – both male and female – express their unhappiness in their marriages: for example, “I mean how many nighttime headaches can one woman get?” Marabel comes back, after the sound of a record scratch, “But wait, there’s hope!” Again, the recording aspect pulls the audience into the fictional space of Marabel May and her dire need to save marriages.

The 60s-style music picks back up as the male narrator begins again, “Marabel May’s Complete Woman course is scientifically proven to improve your marriage – or your husband’s money back!” Marabel states, “But don’t take it from the faceless announcer guy. Take it from the countless, faceless, voices I’ve helped.” More voices of men and women are heard praising Marabel’s method: for example, “I used to get upset when dinner wasn’t on the table when I got home from work. Now, I know I’m right.” Marabel responds to these:

Thank you. Are you ready to take the next step toward marital bliss? You’ve read my bestselling book, now it’s time to jump into the audio companion. I suggest you listen to this record in a calm, quiet setting. Lock your children in their rooms and put your pets in a basket. Pour yourself an afternoon swizzle and settle in. You’re about to impart [sic] on a life-changing journey. Your husbands will thank you!

This exchange suggests both that the audience is enveloped into the diegesis of the podcast, but also the series’ dedication to a bygone format – though the dialog is humorous, the concept of The Complete Woman as a vinyl audio-companion never wavers.

The Complete Woman | Listen via Stitcher for Podcasts

The Complete Woman purposefully – and at times very uncomfortably – puts the listener in the position of someone who is genuinely interested in Marabel and her friends’ worldviews, who aligns with her outdated sexist and racist ideas: Marabel refers to “Oriental China,” and Barbara refers to “not being in Calcutta” when oral sex comes up in conversation. While lampooning these behaviors, the podcast is also forcing its listeners to reckon with them, to consider their own thinking as they are positioned as an audience who would agree with everything Marabel is saying.

What is additionally powerful about The Complete Woman is its reliance on authenticity in its sound. The doctrinaire voices of both the male announcer and Marabel May are so identifiable as typical affected self-help narration; their voices are upbeat but never hurry or seem too excitable – they maintain an evenness that is uncanny. Their tone and manners of speech undermine what the characters are actually saying, making this fictionalized companion album seem all the more legitimate, as if this series was found in a used record store – a kitschy yet forgotten audio self-help guide from the 60s. The intonation of the voices is overtly making fun of white voices assuming and exerting authority, no matter the absurdities that being spoken. The medium allows the audience to move in and out of positions: as genuine followers of Marabel May, as listeners of what might be a kitschy thrift store find, and as comedy fans. The sound maneuvers the audience constantly, suturing them to the aural space of the podcast in a myriad of ways.

The Complete Woman parodies albums like Folkways Records produced in the mid-twentieth century, not just in its material, but also the length of the podcast episodes – a little over twenty minutes, just enough to fit perfectly on a vinyl side. The 1963 Folkways produced Understanding of Sex is a symptomatic example of precisely what the podcast is trying to mock, a pedantic authoritative voice, with liner notes boasting backing by doctors. Important, too, is the Folkways record’s completely white, heteronormative take on sex – which is here discussed solely in the context of maintaining a happy marriage. The Complete Woman’s devotion to the medium is humorous, but also in how it  brandishes its critique of modern womanhood: its commitment to authenticity betrays how much Marabel’s teachings disturbingly relate to the modern moment.

Understanding of Sex: Power and Pleasure

The original The Complete Woman was followed up by four more series including the most recent, The Complete Christmas. I, however, want to dissect an example of scenes from The Complete Wedding’s second episode “Bridal Colors” in order to demonstrate how the series utilizes the podcasting format to position the audience as both in and out of the joke.

“Bridal Colors,” The Complete Woman, Episode Two

This episode uses sound to highlights the absurdist, yet bitingly relevant, commentary on wedding planning, both then and now. “Bridal Colors,” with women’s discussion of picking the perfect dress and color scheme for their weddings, especially underlines not only the parody of mid-century culture, but contemporary obsession with wedding planning. With the internet and influencer culture as an endless source of consumption, advice, and color palettes, modern wedding planning does not seem so different from Marabel’s suggestions – particularly in how both exude whiteness, middleclass-ness, and heteronormativity. Those resonances suggest that, despite The Complete Woman parodying a mid-century mindset and the use of older sound technologies, the analog and the digital are applied in very similar ways to maintain a status quo.

After giving the audience a quick quiz to help them figure out their “seasonal” colors, Marabel gives some specific suggestions for planning the perfect wedding. It is important to quote her entire speech on wedding scenarios in its entirety to fully understand how the series uses voice in concert with content to create its cutting yet absurd nature. Marabel speaks, as she always does, in a clear, enthusiastic, pedantic, very raced and gendered voice:

It’s science! – but for ladies. I’ll walk you through a few likely scenarios. I suggest taking notes with a pencil and paper. If you don’t have access to pencils or paper, chocolate syrup on a large cutting board is your best bet. If you’re a Winter having a city hall wedding, try a tea-length going away dress or a handsome woolen ensemble in French white with a veil-less headdress. Your flowers may be carried as a sheath or as an old-fashioned nosegay, pinned to a prayer book. Muffs are encouraged but not required. If worn, they must be flame-retarded [sic] or pre-burned. If you’re a Spring having a formal church wedding, try a long-trained brocade dress in true white and carry an impressive bouquet of American beauty roses, along with an ivory rosary. Jewelry may be delicate and preferably real. No feathers! – unless of course it’s a live canary, pinned to a broach borrowed by your mother-in-law’s estranged secretary. If you’re a Summer having a semi-formal wedding at home, try an ankle-length silk organza garden dress in bridal blush. Shoes are optional, but if worn must be made of glass blown by your tallest male relative on your maternal side. Sarah Bernhardt peonies are appropriate but no more than a half-dozen lest you come off looking braggadocio… is a word I learned!

Marabel’s voice is very candid, and she speaks quickly, as if this ridiculous list of arbitrary rules is a reminder for the audience of concepts of which they’re already aware. This monologue is exemplary of the series’ style – twisting banal aspects of material culture into absurdity to highlight the pressures put on women to perform and perfect things like weddings, marriage, and motherhood. “It’s science! – but for ladies” focuses on this fictional ideal that there is a formula that can lead to the perfect marriage, or that any aspect of idealized womanhood can be perfected if you just follow these easy steps. Woman’s work is implied here to be banal, because it is something expected, and if one fails, the consequences are dire.

“Barbie_vs_Ali” by Flickr User RomitaGirl67 (CC BY 2.0)

While listening to Marabel go on is wildly absurd, it is also mocking a one-size-fits all mentality about weddings, and womanhood in general. The wedding comes to represent a particularly coded – white, middleclass, heteronormative – aspirational cultural practice that, in this midcentury moment of Marabel, is becoming solidified as something one is “supposed to do” and supposed to do in a certain way. It suggests to the audience, too, that these practices, while shifting, haven’t completely gone away. There are still expectations, traditions, and rituals that are widely expected to be performed by woman, relating not just to marriage, but work, sex, motherhood – the list goes on. This midcentury moment is still strongly felt in the contemporary moment, so as Marabel rattles off a list of what seem like insane rules – “Shoes are optional, but if worn must be made of glass blown by your tallest male relative on your maternal side” – they aren’t all that far off from today. These notions of perfected womanhood, too, are strongly structured by ideals held over from that time about race, class, and gender. 

“Bridesmaids” by Flickr User Cruberti (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

In “Bridal Colors,” the ladies of The Complete Woman also sit down to reminisce about their wedding themes – though Marabel is initially keen on having the ladies recall their roles in her own special day. When Marabel uncouthly mentions how much salve she used to clear up the many bug bites she received at Barbara’s backyard wedding, Rita sunnily jumps in with, “You know a little trick is you put toothpaste on ‘em.” Marabel, comically deadpan, replies (you can hear the massive eyeroll just from her voice), “Oh, Rita.” Heard on the recording, the voice actresses all burst out laughing at what sounds like an improvised moment. The absurdity of their conversation is brought to a halt by an honest suggestion, and it is quickly incorporated into the scene.

Angela Trimbur
Angela Trimbur plays Rita

Voices shaking with a bit of laughter are heard throughout the series, but this stands out as particularly noticeable. It highlights the improvised nature of some of these group scenes by audibly breaking both the ‘60s narrative and the aesthetics of many contemporary hyper-edited studio podcasts. It would not be unheard in either moment to cut out the laughter or re-record the scene, but it is kept in, obvious to the audience. This laughter breaks the authenticity to the medium and works to successfully suture the podcast space to that of contemporary listeners. There is no frame to restrict, not only what can be heard, but what can be said. The diegesis spills into the space of the audience – they, too, are in the joke, for a moment no longer positioned as the fictional audience of Marabel May, but a comedy podcast audience. This builds a sense of community between listener and creator, as seemingly intimate moments of gaffes become integral to the both the diegesis of the podcast, but also the listening experience. In the case of The Complete Woman the format welcomes mistakes and improvisation as voices break out of characterization to comment on the reality behind the format – which is itself an important part of podcasting.

The comedy of The Complete Woman series is dark at times, as Lund notes both the limitations of women’s roles throughout the 20th century and highlights the ways in which things have not changed. While The Complete Woman is not directly calling on its audience to act, it is addressing the complexities of nostalgia for a previous moment by noting how, in some ways, it closely resembles the contemporary one. There is nostalgia found in the audio-companion concept of the series, but the content – while humorous – can be quite deep and painful. The Complete Woman does not succeed because it draws fondly on former sound technologies, but rather because it – often harshly – points out the pitfalls of nostalgia; Marabel May’s twisted world of the idealized straight white 1960s middle class housewife is often a direct commentary on the current position of women. The show suggests both that this kind of thinking hasn’t shifted much, but also, and more significantly in this moment, the conversation surrounding middle class white women’s complicity in upholding systemic racism. While the original The Complete Woman was released years before these conversations became widely prevalent, it holds up a satirical, yet bitingly revelatory mirror to the contemporary moment.

Why Did a Majority of White Women Vote for Trump? | New ...
“White Woman For Trump” Image from CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

The podcast also amplifies the voices of the community of women behind it, who are looking critically at this moment in history by reframing and reengaging. It is worth noting Lund is a cofounder of the women-run Earios podcast network, that “strives to elevate the podcasting market with intelligent, diverse, subversive content BY WOMEN, FOR EVERYONE.” It is through comedy – ironically and inaccurately territorialized as a very “masculine domain” in the U.S. entertainment industry – and the genuineness of these scenes which break open the diegetic sound space of the podcast, that the audience can hear – and connect to – the very real women behind-the-scenes of the parody. Ultimately, through looking at series like The Complete Woman, it becomes clear that podcasting is more than a return to familiar formats (radio) – it is creating something new. Improvisation and comedy are particularly significant: the moments of improv and mistakes can create genuine connection.

—

Megan Fariello is a Chicago-based writer with a background in cultural studies. She is currently a contributor with Cine-File, and has recently published work in Film Cred and Dismantle. Megan is also a PhD graduate from the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. This article draws and expands on work from her dissertation, titled The Techno-Historical Acoustic: The Reappearance of Older Sound Technologies in the Contemporary Media Landscape, which intervenes in the disciplines of cinema and media studies and sound studies, examining how the rise of aurally-focused narratives in contemporary media – including television and podcasting – are recasting processes of nostalgia.

—

tape-reel

REWIND! . . .If you liked this post, you may also dig:

Vocal Gender and the Gendered Soundscape: At the Intersection of Gender Studies and Sound Studies–Christine Ehrick

Gendered Voices and Social Harmony–Robin James

A Manifesto, or Sounding Out!’s 51st Podcast!!! – Aaron Trammell

This Is How You Listen: Reading Critically Junot Diaz’s Audiobook-Liana Silva

The Theremin’s Voice: Amplifying the Inaudibility of Whiteness through an Early Interracial Electronic Music Collaboration–Kelly Hiser

Writing from Below

 “Let’s check in with Marabel May”:  Audience Positioning, Nostalgia, and Format in Amanda Lund’s The Complete Woman? Podcast Series

Promote International Podcast Day

In honor of International Podcast Day on 30 September, Sounding Out! brings you Pod-Tember (and Pod-Tober too, actually, now that we’re bi-weekly) a series of posts exploring different facets of the audio art of the podcast, which we have been putting into those earbuds since 2011. Enjoy! –JS

I’ve listened to an inordinate about of podcasts in the past year and half; the number of hours would be shocking. I’ve written about this previously: how audio, friendly voices in my ears, was a more comforting medium than television or film. In early 2021, Vulture’s Nicholas Quah published findings about the continuing rise of podcasts, suggesting that American audiences are intensifying their interest in the medium. He writes, “The case began to be made that podcasting, more so than many other new media infrastructures, was uniquely suited to meeting the moment,” suggesting that the pandemic has buoyed the medium extensively. His findings also show that podcast audiences are engaging more directly and are growing in diversity. The running joke about the medium is that everyone has a podcast. I certainly do. Comedians do. Talk show hosts do. Politicians do. In a recent episode of Bitch Sesh: A Real Housewives Breakdown Podcast, hosts Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider joke that now every Real Housewife feels the need to start her own podcast, too.

In this 2021 moment, the series The Complete Woman? has become more relevant than ever, particularly in relation to the rise of conversations about the “Karen,” and a particular kind of white woman who attempts to wield social and racialized power. The podcast is marked as a “Baby Boomer” parody – or a fictional show directed at a fictional Baby Boomer audience. It’s eviscerating that culture, however, in its caricaturing of Marabel May and her friends, interrogating contemporary conversations about whiteness and middleclass-ness; its dark humor lies not in outdated gender roles, but in how incredibly close to home it all hits. It’s not a distant past, but a current reality.

Record Vintage Record Player Music Edited 2020, Image courtesy of www.songsimian.com

The Complete Woman podcast directly destabilizes nostalgia, even as it draws on older audio formats. In the series, comedian Amanda Lund parodies real-life mid 20th-century marriage self-help author Marabel Morgan, who promoted women’s deference to their husbands through evangelical Christianity – her book is titled The Total Woman, as mentioned by Vulture writer Nathan Rabin, a critical enthusiast of Lund’s series. The fictional Marabel May (voiced by Lund) is a housewife living in 1960s America with her husband, Freck (Matt Gourley). The Complete Woman series is set up as audio companions – diegetically understood as vinyl records – to Marabel’s book of the same name, which she penned after successfully saving her “disaster” of a marriage. She claims, “I believe it’s possible for any woman to manipulate her husband into adoring her in matter of weeks.” Each episode of the series focuses on a different aspect of womanhood or features a “checking-in” with Marabel and her “neighborhood gal” friends, aggressive Joanie (Maria Blasucci), muddled Barbara (Stephanie Allynne), and jovial divorcee Rita (Angela Trimbur).

The segments featuring Marabel chatting with her neighborhood girlfriends are particularly insightful, as each woman expresses her own warped version of the mid-century American marriage. They also combine the outdated instructional segments with more modern casual conversations, highlighting The Complete Woman’s addressing of women’s emotional labor, as well conventional housework. These segments also illuminate the distinctly female-driven nature of the series, as these voice actresses tend to improvise the discussions at hand. The back-and-forth between these women is both satirical and demonstrative of a sense of fun in their parody, and, at times, sincere friendship behind-the-scenes. Though a harsh satire of women’s positions in American culture, the show reveals a sense of community as Lund features her friends, all working comedians and actresses based in Los Angeles who find creative outlets in podcasting.

Format here, is significant too. The podcast directly satirizes an older format–self-help vinyl records–and its usage – questioning the ideologies of the past and present. The series conceptual set-up is nostalgic, but the content is not. The Complete Woman is unique in its use of format to draw on nostalgia for these pedantic vinyl recordings; the specificity of the audio and structure of the series suggests Lund has some fondness for these bygone formats. But the formatting is also used to critique and comment on the historical sexism and patriarchalism of marriage. While this is done with humor, the satire presented by the series sounds shockingly grounded in reality. 

Edwin L. Baron – Reduce Through Listening (1964)

To understand the concept of The Complete Woman series, let’s examine the opening episode’s introductory narration. The first episode begins with the show’s recurring “groovy” 60s-style music, signaling a move to the past. While the show is about women for women, a male narrator is the first voice heard – an immediate indicator of Marabel May’s deference to men, and thus the imaginary audience’s, as well. The narrator states, “Welcome to The Complete Woman, the audio-companion to the number one bestselling book of the same name, written by Marabel May. It’s 1963, divorce is on the rise, the tides are changing, and marriages are drowning.”

“Home is Where the Wife Is”–The Complete Woman, Episode One (2017)

The voices in the podcast sound echo-y and distant, reminiscent of listening to an old recording, which positions the listener as a participant – as if they are indeed in a struggle marriage and choosing to play this record and get advice from the fictional expert. Marabel then, in a deadpan manner, states, “Hi, I’m Marabel May, bestselling author, unaccredited marriage expert, and stay-at-home wife. Are you stuck in an unhappy marriage? Feel like there’s no hope in sight? You’re not alone. I receive millions of letters in the mail every day from sad people just like you. Here’s what they have to say.” Melancholic piano music starts playing as different voices – both male and female – express their unhappiness in their marriages: for example, “I mean how many nighttime headaches can one woman get?” Marabel comes back, after the sound of a record scratch, “But wait, there’s hope!” Again, the recording aspect pulls the audience into the fictional space of Marabel May and her dire need to save marriages.

The 60s-style music picks back up as the male narrator begins again, “Marabel May’s Complete Woman course is scientifically proven to improve your marriage – or your husband’s money back!” Marabel states, “But don’t take it from the faceless announcer guy. Take it from the countless, faceless, voices I’ve helped.” More voices of men and women are heard praising Marabel’s method: for example, “I used to get upset when dinner wasn’t on the table when I got home from work. Now, I know I’m right.” Marabel responds to these:

Thank you. Are you ready to take the next step toward marital bliss? You’ve read my bestselling book, now it’s time to jump into the audio companion. I suggest you listen to this record in a calm, quiet setting. Lock your children in their rooms and put your pets in a basket. Pour yourself an afternoon swizzle and settle in. You’re about to impart [sic] on a life-changing journey. Your husbands will thank you!

This exchange suggests both that the audience is enveloped into the diegesis of the podcast, but also the series’ dedication to a bygone format – though the dialog is humorous, the concept of The Complete Woman as a vinyl audio-companion never wavers.

The Complete Woman | Listen via Stitcher for Podcasts

The Complete Woman purposefully – and at times very uncomfortably – puts the listener in the position of someone who is genuinely interested in Marabel and her friends’ worldviews, who aligns with her outdated sexist and racist ideas: Marabel refers to “Oriental China,” and Barbara refers to “not being in Calcutta” when oral sex comes up in conversation. While lampooning these behaviors, the podcast is also forcing its listeners to reckon with them, to consider their own thinking as they are positioned as an audience who would agree with everything Marabel is saying.

What is additionally powerful about The Complete Woman is its reliance on authenticity in its sound. The doctrinaire voices of both the male announcer and Marabel May are so identifiable as typical affected self-help narration; their voices are upbeat but never hurry or seem too excitable – they maintain an evenness that is uncanny. Their tone and manners of speech undermine what the characters are actually saying, making this fictionalized companion album seem all the more legitimate, as if this series was found in a used record store – a kitschy yet forgotten audio self-help guide from the 60s. The intonation of the voices is overtly making fun of white voices assuming and exerting authority, no matter the absurdities that being spoken. The medium allows the audience to move in and out of positions: as genuine followers of Marabel May, as listeners of what might be a kitschy thrift store find, and as comedy fans. The sound maneuvers the audience constantly, suturing them to the aural space of the podcast in a myriad of ways.

The Complete Woman parodies albums like Folkways Records produced in the mid-twentieth century, not just in its material, but also the length of the podcast episodes – a little over twenty minutes, just enough to fit perfectly on a vinyl side. The 1963 Folkways produced Understanding of Sex is a symptomatic example of precisely what the podcast is trying to mock, a pedantic authoritative voice, with liner notes boasting backing by doctors. Important, too, is the Folkways record’s completely white, heteronormative take on sex – which is here discussed solely in the context of maintaining a happy marriage. The Complete Woman’s devotion to the medium is humorous, but also in how it  brandishes its critique of modern womanhood: its commitment to authenticity betrays how much Marabel’s teachings disturbingly relate to the modern moment.

Understanding of Sex: Power and Pleasure

The original The Complete Woman was followed up by four more series including the most recent, The Complete Christmas. I, however, want to dissect an example of scenes from The Complete Wedding’s second episode “Bridal Colors” in order to demonstrate how the series utilizes the podcasting format to position the audience as both in and out of the joke.

“Bridal Colors,” The Complete Woman, Episode Two

This episode uses sound to highlights the absurdist, yet bitingly relevant, commentary on wedding planning, both then and now. “Bridal Colors,” with women’s discussion of picking the perfect dress and color scheme for their weddings, especially underlines not only the parody of mid-century culture, but contemporary obsession with wedding planning. With the internet and influencer culture as an endless source of consumption, advice, and color palettes, modern wedding planning does not seem so different from Marabel’s suggestions – particularly in how both exude whiteness, middleclass-ness, and heteronormativity. Those resonances suggest that, despite The Complete Woman parodying a mid-century mindset and the use of older sound technologies, the analog and the digital are applied in very similar ways to maintain a status quo.

After giving the audience a quick quiz to help them figure out their “seasonal” colors, Marabel gives some specific suggestions for planning the perfect wedding. It is important to quote her entire speech on wedding scenarios in its entirety to fully understand how the series uses voice in concert with content to create its cutting yet absurd nature. Marabel speaks, as she always does, in a clear, enthusiastic, pedantic, very raced and gendered voice:

It’s science! – but for ladies. I’ll walk you through a few likely scenarios. I suggest taking notes with a pencil and paper. If you don’t have access to pencils or paper, chocolate syrup on a large cutting board is your best bet. If you’re a Winter having a city hall wedding, try a tea-length going away dress or a handsome woolen ensemble in French white with a veil-less headdress. Your flowers may be carried as a sheath or as an old-fashioned nosegay, pinned to a prayer book. Muffs are encouraged but not required. If worn, they must be flame-retarded [sic] or pre-burned. If you’re a Spring having a formal church wedding, try a long-trained brocade dress in true white and carry an impressive bouquet of American beauty roses, along with an ivory rosary. Jewelry may be delicate and preferably real. No feathers! – unless of course it’s a live canary, pinned to a broach borrowed by your mother-in-law’s estranged secretary. If you’re a Summer having a semi-formal wedding at home, try an ankle-length silk organza garden dress in bridal blush. Shoes are optional, but if worn must be made of glass blown by your tallest male relative on your maternal side. Sarah Bernhardt peonies are appropriate but no more than a half-dozen lest you come off looking braggadocio… is a word I learned!

Marabel’s voice is very candid, and she speaks quickly, as if this ridiculous list of arbitrary rules is a reminder for the audience of concepts of which they’re already aware. This monologue is exemplary of the series’ style – twisting banal aspects of material culture into absurdity to highlight the pressures put on women to perform and perfect things like weddings, marriage, and motherhood. “It’s science! – but for ladies” focuses on this fictional ideal that there is a formula that can lead to the perfect marriage, or that any aspect of idealized womanhood can be perfected if you just follow these easy steps. Woman’s work is implied here to be banal, because it is something expected, and if one fails, the consequences are dire.

“Barbie_vs_Ali” by Flickr User RomitaGirl67 (CC BY 2.0)

While listening to Marabel go on is wildly absurd, it is also mocking a one-size-fits all mentality about weddings, and womanhood in general. The wedding comes to represent a particularly coded – white, middleclass, heteronormative – aspirational cultural practice that, in this midcentury moment of Marabel, is becoming solidified as something one is “supposed to do” and supposed to do in a certain way. It suggests to the audience, too, that these practices, while shifting, haven’t completely gone away. There are still expectations, traditions, and rituals that are widely expected to be performed by woman, relating not just to marriage, but work, sex, motherhood – the list goes on. This midcentury moment is still strongly felt in the contemporary moment, so as Marabel rattles off a list of what seem like insane rules – “Shoes are optional, but if worn must be made of glass blown by your tallest male relative on your maternal side” – they aren’t all that far off from today. These notions of perfected womanhood, too, are strongly structured by ideals held over from that time about race, class, and gender. 

“Bridesmaids” by Flickr User Cruberti (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

In “Bridal Colors,” the ladies of The Complete Woman also sit down to reminisce about their wedding themes – though Marabel is initially keen on having the ladies recall their roles in her own special day. When Marabel uncouthly mentions how much salve she used to clear up the many bug bites she received at Barbara’s backyard wedding, Rita sunnily jumps in with, “You know a little trick is you put toothpaste on ‘em.” Marabel, comically deadpan, replies (you can hear the massive eyeroll just from her voice), “Oh, Rita.” Heard on the recording, the voice actresses all burst out laughing at what sounds like an improvised moment. The absurdity of their conversation is brought to a halt by an honest suggestion, and it is quickly incorporated into the scene.

Angela Trimbur
Angela Trimbur plays Rita

Voices shaking with a bit of laughter are heard throughout the series, but this stands out as particularly noticeable. It highlights the improvised nature of some of these group scenes by audibly breaking both the ‘60s narrative and the aesthetics of many contemporary hyper-edited studio podcasts. It would not be unheard in either moment to cut out the laughter or re-record the scene, but it is kept in, obvious to the audience. This laughter breaks the authenticity to the medium and works to successfully suture the podcast space to that of contemporary listeners. There is no frame to restrict, not only what can be heard, but what can be said. The diegesis spills into the space of the audience – they, too, are in the joke, for a moment no longer positioned as the fictional audience of Marabel May, but a comedy podcast audience. This builds a sense of community between listener and creator, as seemingly intimate moments of gaffes become integral to the both the diegesis of the podcast, but also the listening experience. In the case of The Complete Woman the format welcomes mistakes and improvisation as voices break out of characterization to comment on the reality behind the format – which is itself an important part of podcasting.

The comedy of The Complete Woman series is dark at times, as Lund notes both the limitations of women’s roles throughout the 20th century and highlights the ways in which things have not changed. While The Complete Woman is not directly calling on its audience to act, it is addressing the complexities of nostalgia for a previous moment by noting how, in some ways, it closely resembles the contemporary one. There is nostalgia found in the audio-companion concept of the series, but the content – while humorous – can be quite deep and painful. The Complete Woman does not succeed because it draws fondly on former sound technologies, but rather because it – often harshly – points out the pitfalls of nostalgia; Marabel May’s twisted world of the idealized straight white 1960s middle class housewife is often a direct commentary on the current position of women. The show suggests both that this kind of thinking hasn’t shifted much, but also, and more significantly in this moment, the conversation surrounding middle class white women’s complicity in upholding systemic racism. While the original The Complete Woman was released years before these conversations became widely prevalent, it holds up a satirical, yet bitingly revelatory mirror to the contemporary moment.

Why Did a Majority of White Women Vote for Trump? | New ...
“White Woman For Trump” Image from CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

The podcast also amplifies the voices of the community of women behind it, who are looking critically at this moment in history by reframing and reengaging. It is worth noting Lund is a cofounder of the women-run Earios podcast network, that “strives to elevate the podcasting market with intelligent, diverse, subversive content BY WOMEN, FOR EVERYONE.” It is through comedy – ironically and inaccurately territorialized as a very “masculine domain” in the U.S. entertainment industry – and the genuineness of these scenes which break open the diegetic sound space of the podcast, that the audience can hear – and connect to – the very real women behind-the-scenes of the parody. Ultimately, through looking at series like The Complete Woman, it becomes clear that podcasting is more than a return to familiar formats (radio) – it is creating something new. Improvisation and comedy are particularly significant: the moments of improv and mistakes can create genuine connection.

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Megan Fariello is a Chicago-based writer with a background in cultural studies. She is currently a contributor with Cine-File, and has recently published work in Film Cred and Dismantle. Megan is also a PhD graduate from the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. This article draws and expands on work from her dissertation, titled The Techno-Historical Acoustic: The Reappearance of Older Sound Technologies in the Contemporary Media Landscape, which intervenes in the disciplines of cinema and media studies and sound studies, examining how the rise of aurally-focused narratives in contemporary media – including television and podcasting – are recasting processes of nostalgia.

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