Class

Building a Blog Cabin during a Financial Crisis: Circuits of Struggle in the Digital Enclosure

by Robert Gehl

Television and New Media, 2012

In their studies of online media, political economists of communication have examined how firms like Google enclose... more In their studies of online media, political economists of communication have examined how firms like Google enclose users in a web of commercial surveillance, thus facilitating the commodification of their online labor. However, this focus on enclosure tends to overlook the political possibilities highlighted by autonomist Marxist theory—namely, that users, under certain circumstances, can appropriate these applications to contest conditions of exploitation. This article offers an analysis of Blog Cabin 2008, a cable home improvement show, in order to explore this tension between autonomy and enclosure. Our findings suggest that producers indeed used the show’s blog to exploit fans’ free labor. However, fans also used the blog to form social bonds, to press demands on the show’s producers, and to make connections between the show’s class politics and the wider financial crisis. A concluding section explores the theoretical and political significance of such unanticipated uses of the show’s blog.

Pierre Bourdieu and the Distinctive Body

by Nadeem Fayaz

The global ‘order’, socioeconomic status and the economics of African identity

by Caroline Kamau

Kamau, C. & Rutland, A. (2005).

Chronic elitism within Africa has created a two‐tier milieu in which those Africans who are in a position to take... more Chronic elitism within Africa has created a two‐tier milieu in which those Africans who are in a position to take advantage of the global economic system often do so at the expense of other Africans. The effects of social class and indicators of individual economic mobility on African identity were thus examined. 213 Kenyans participated in this questionnaire‐based study for structural equation analysis. The main finding was that socioeconomic status (SES) positively predicts individual economic mobility, which then negatively influences African identity concepts, and that the significance of economic concepts for African identity depends on social class. For example, in the high SES group, materialism and cynicism about Africa's future economic global prospects were found to have a negative effect on commitment to the national economy and African identity. The general implication is that anti‐group economic behaviour in Africa (e.g. corruption, worker exploitation) is attributable to individual mobility, as well as to intra‐national and global economic structures.

Waiting to Set It Off: African American Women and the Sapphire Fixation

by Kimberly Springer

published in Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies, eds. Martha McCaughey, Neal King

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen: The Meaning of Urban Culture in Byker

by Paul Jobling

History of Photography, 17:3, Autumn 1993, 253-62

Class, Productive and Unproductive Labour: Divisions in the Global Working Class?

by Timothy Kerswell

Published Journal Article

Political interactions are alliances and conflicts between various social forces. This article discusses the... more Political interactions are alliances and conflicts between various social forces. This article discusses the distinction between productive and unproductive labour in relation to the various activities that take place during the production and consumption of a commodity. Most importantly, this article demonstrates that the ability to perform unproductive labour is dependent on the performance of productive labour. On the basis of this, a greater understanding of the divisions that exist between workers in the global North and in the global South is achieved

Media and Class-making: What lessons are learnt when a celebrity chav dies? Raisborough, J, Frith H and Klein O (forthcoming) Sociology

by Jayne Raisborough

forthcoming in Sociology

Class is often overlooked in sociological studies of death just as studies of class overlook death. The controversial... more Class is often overlooked in sociological studies of death just as studies of class overlook death. The controversial media coverage of the death of Jade Goody provides a useful focus for exploring contemporary class-making. Recent sociological analyses of class representations in popular culture have demonstrated how denigration and humiliation serve as mechanisms which position sections of the white, working class (chavs) as repositories of bad taste. We argue that these are not the only (or even the most prevalent) affective mechanisms for class-making. In this paper, we explore how cultural imperatives for ‘dying well’ intersect with what could be perceived as more positive or even affectionate representations of Jade to produce ‘good taste’ as a naturalised properties of the middle class. As such, we demonstrate that the circulation of inequalities through precarious and dynamic cultural representations involves more complex affective mechanisms in class boundary work than is often recognised.

Keywords: Celebrity. Chav. Class. Death. Jade Goody. Reality Television.

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments. Area 44 (2), 136-143.

This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can... more This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can be considered as moments. From this shared conceptualisation of process and fluidity, I argue that it becomes easier to recognise how these two phenomena actually converge. Building upon this conceived coalescence of neoliberalism and violence, the second aim is to recognise how the hegemony of neoliberalism positions it as an abuser, which facilitates the abandonment of those ‘Others’ who fall outside of neoliberal normativity. I argue that the widespread banishment of ‘Others’ under neoliberalism produces a ‘state of exception’, wherein because of its inherently dialectic nature, exceptional violence is transformed into exemplary violence. This metamorphosis occurs as aversion for alterity intensifies under neoliberalism and its associated violence against ‘Others’ comes to form the rule.

Class Confrontations in Archaeology

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall H. and Mark Walker
1999 Class Confrontations in Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 33(1)159-183.

An updated version of this paper appears in Archaeology as Political Action, 2008

Archaeologist not only study class they also live it. Archaeology as a discipline serves class interests and as a... more Archaeologist not only study class they also live it. Archaeology as a discipline serves class interests and as a profession,or occupation, it has its own class structure. The discipline of archaeology has, since its founding, primarily served middle class interests. It has formed part of the symbolic capital that has been necessary for membership in the middle class during this century. Archaeology has traditionally reproduced itself in the university using a guild model of apprenticeship and mastery. In both the academy and in cultural resource man agement today this guild model has become an ideology that obscures the existence of an archaeological proletariat of teaching assistants, adjuncts, and field techs. The ideology justifies denying these archaeologists respect, a living wage, job security, and benefits. A seven step program is proposed to rectify the structural class inequalities of modern archaeology.

‘British Identity and Constitutional Reform in Gibraltar’, in J. Matthews & D. Travers (eds)., Islands and Britishness: A Global Perspective, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), pp. 149-161.

by Chris Grocott

Classes and nations in recent historical sociology

by Daniel Chernilo

Capitalism, Desperation and Urgency

by Deniz Yonucu

Red Thread / Archive /  Issue 3 (2011)

In July 2003, an incident took place in Hasköy, Istanbul that was newsworthy, even though it was not in the papers: 5... more In July 2003, an incident took place in Hasköy, Istanbul that was newsworthy, even though it was not in the papers: 5 young men around the ages16-17 want to enter the new shopping mall that opened in their neighborhood. However, the security guard, who is also a resident of the same neighborhood, does not let them enter as per his instructions. Because according to the mall management the youth of the neighborhood are "dangerous." The young men get angry and an argument ensues at the entrance. Among the group, a young man of 16 is exasperated with being denied entrance, and as his friends are arguing with the guard, he begins to run back and forth to crash into the large glass shop window. At his third strike, the glass shatters and the young man succeeds in entering the mall alongside the glass cutting his body. In this article, drawing on my research in Hasköy and Güzeltepe[2] which once used to be organized working class neighborhoods of Istanbul, I will discuss the effects of contemporary capitalism on working class youth and certain forms of responses they devise in face of this. More specifically, I will explore the ways in which Hasköy and Güzeltepe youth's struggle against social and economic exclusion is shaped by a sense of urgency -sometimes at the expense of their future- as exemplified in the reaction of the young man who finds an alternative way to enter the mall at the expense of his body.

Contract feudalism: A critique of employer power over employees

by Kevin Carson

To Stabilize a Movement. Managing Identity Formation in the Swedish Trade Union Movement in the 1920s

by Jenny Jansson

To be presented at Social Science History Association's Conference in Boston 17-20 November 2011.

This paper aims at examining the role of leaders in the construction of a strong cohesive class identity and its... more This paper aims at examining the role of leaders in the construction of a strong cohesive class identity and its implications for the formation of a unitary labor movement. Class identity and mobilization constitute important factors for developing unitary class organizations which in turn play an important role for the establishment and sustainability of the welfare state. However previous research has ignored the role of the leadership in the class formation process. Based on a study of minutes, letters, annual reports and diaries I argue that the leadership of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation for blue collar workers, the LO, strategically decided to construct a strong reformist and consensus promoting identity as a response to the growing left wing threat in the organization and the troublesome high strike level. Through image management, the leadership implemented the reformist consensus image of the organization on the grass root level in Sweden in the 1930s using the newly established adult education system. Thus the leadership became the driving force in the class identity formation process using education as the tool for the identity formation process. This enabled the leadership to establish a closer cooperation with the employers and to build a strong trade union movement, as it turns out, the strongest in the world.

'Men in the 90s' [Book chapter]

by Claire Monk

In British Cinema of the 90s, ed. Robert Murphy, London: British Film Institute, 2000, pp.156-66. ISBN: 0-85170-763-7 HB/0-85170-762-9 PB.

'Underbelly UK: The 1990s underclass film, masculinity and the ideologies of "new" Britain' [Book chapter]

by Claire Monk

In British Cinema, Past and Present, eds Justine Ashby & Andrew Higson, London & New York: Routledge, 2000, pp.274-87. ISBN: 0-415-22061-0 HB/0-415-22062-9 PB.

Sex, Politics And The Past: Merchant Ivory, The Heritage Film and Its Critics in 1980s and 1990s Britain [MA Dissertation]

by Claire Monk

MA Dissertation, British Film Institute/University of London, 1994.

'Sex, Politics and the Past' is my unpublished (although widely cited) MA Dissertation. Parts of it, but not all, are published as journal papers. See:
‘The British “heritage film” and its critics’, Critical Survey, 1995, 7:2, pp.116-24.
‘The heritage film and gendered spectatorship’, CloseUp: The Electronic Journal of British Cinema, 1997, Issue 1.

The BFI National Library in London holds a reference copy of the full Dissertation. Please feel free to contact me if you have further enquiries.

Behind the Walls: The Material Culture of Venetian Elites

by Patricia Fortini Brown

In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797, ed. John Martin and Dennis Romano (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 295-338

The Beginnings of a Movement: Leagues of Agrarian Communities, Unions of Industrial Workers, and Their Struggles in Mexico, 1920-1929

by Miles Rodriguez

Ph.D. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, 2010, 344 pages

This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning... more This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning of 1929, labor unions and agrarian leagues united into a single worker-peasant movement, with organizational components dedicated to meeting worker and peasant demands through agrarian reform, union struggle, and electoral politics. The study thus follows as closely as possible the internal and broader struggles of each separate organization, how the organizations built power, first in the period when they were separate (1920-1926), then in the period when they united (1927-1929), and finally in the period when they divided (March-July, 1929). The first chapter is dedicated to discovering the ways in which leagues of agrarian communities arose in many regions of Mexico in the early 1920s, and how the agrarian league in Veracruz then combined with other leagues on a national level. Because workers in the railroad industry made the greatest difference for the ways in which workers in the country's main, national industries, and in independent, autonomous unions, united during this decade, the second and third chapters detail the struggles of railroad transportation workers during a major class conflict. In chapters four and five, on mass struggles for worker- peasant unity, I argue that the unification of worker and peasant organizations into two different kinds of alliances, an independent union confederation and an electoral bloc, derived from earlier experiences of conflict, contemporaneous debates on worker-peasant unity, and opportunities opened by the growing national crisis. After it united on political grounds, the movement divided on military grounds, during and immediately after the Escobar Rebellion of 1929, which is the subject of the final chapter.

Von der Klassen- zur Volkspartei? Anmerkungen zum ideologischen Selbsverständnis und zur gesellschaftlichen Basis der SPS im "kurzen 20. Jahrhundert"

by Adrian Zimmermann

published in: Traverse Zeitschrift für Geschichte - Revue d'histoire, 2007/1, pp. 95-113