AND an Easter Egg for you all. We have not QUITE recovered from this paper at the British Library conference. From abstract stage the paper was completely fresh & unique. And we thought it would be fun to view it again under these bizarre circumstances.
Insurgency - what can that teach Ambridge to prepare for pandemic?
James told us (in the pub) that he had had to feign his brother’s wedding to come to London to present…He further followed up with ‘Counterinsurgency II: The podcast.’
James is an avid Archers fan, and currently a political advisor to the NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan, and its there that he saw the potential for counter-insurgency in Ambridge.
This year James will develop his 2018 paper (‘Hearts and Minds in Borsetshire – Fighting Small Wars in Ambridge’) into an audio podcast, dramatising the counter-insurgency warfare scenario in Ambridge. In this invented scenario Ambridge is subject to a bitter insurgency fought by local guerrillas motivated by perceived economic and political grievances. The paper examines how an international force, led by the United States, would counter this insurgency and seek to pacify the population, using the counter-insurgency doctrine laid out in the US Army Counter-Insurgency manual.
Using actors and amateurs drawn from the academic, military and diplomatic communities, James will present the scenario as a real event, by doing so reinforcing the conclusions and recommendations he identified in 2018 i.e. that Ambridge represents a credible model for simulated counter-insurgency training. James’ work builds on that from Dr Nicola Headlam, Dr Tim Vercellotti and Charlotte Bilby on the power dynamics and political networks in Ambridge.
just a note – James Armstrong pulls on the informal networks in the village and has used the Headlam Hypothesis and strength of weak ties work from the Lincoln paper but not the updated one from this year in Reading. The methodology remains sound but needs revising.
James – wherever you are?? Love from AA
Dr Jerome Turner has returned to his interest in Archers fans. He was a star of the fandom panel in Reading where we turned our gaze firmly inward to seek to explore the aspects of Archers Fandom. The fandom panel in full;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHsZLHx3srA
we will return to these papers at future Saturday Omnibus sessions.
Claire Astbury, Sarah Kate Merry, Helen Burrows and Jez Turner are our fandom home team for Reading 2020.
Jerome Turner’s paper: From kitchens to smartphones: Updating our understanding of The Archers listening practices in the digital age - situating this work in theory. Was rooted in his auto-ethnographic work undercover as various handles which will be familiar to tweetalongers - Jerome’s first piece for us was on ‘Being @borsetpolice which is in Custard (AIAGB)
This piece set the tone for this thread of work charting the ways in which the internet has evolved through the emergence of social media, so too have the communicative practices of The Archers listeners. Many of them (us) now use Twitter to comment, discuss the show or participate in the omnibus episode ‘tweetalong’.
Primarily, this chapter recognises the hundred-plus Twitter accounts which have been created by listeners to authentically roleplay characters, organisations, animals and even objects from the show. I frame these practices and ground the chapter in academic discourses of ‘fan fiction’. Reflecting on my own activity as @borsetpolice, I look at the role and place of this fan fiction from the individual practitioner’s perspective but also the wider listener base. In this chapter, I develop an argument that these practices contribute towards the community of listeners online, as well as the show itself. I explore the types of activities and accounts involved, where they often focus around major storylines, and then reflect in detail on the individual’s motivations and practice. I situate this in terms of an opportunity to become involved in an online community that aspires towards everyday rural ideals, and how this can be understood as a significant affective experience for listeners. This need for escapism into ‘banal’ worlds, the desire to participate, and the sense that fan fiction is a game that we take part in are also drawn out as significant.
Trigger Warning. I cannot listen to Bronwen’s paper. I am currently a dog person without a dog and we lost 4 dogs in 5 years having rescued them and loved them. So I must disconnect as you enjoy
Death at Ambridge Hall: How the Archers demonstrates the impact on owners when they lose animals. – Bronwen Williams