A future for post-industrial communities?
A two-day conference co-hosted by the national campaigning organisation
HOPE not hate and Leeds Universitys Centre for Employment Relations
Innovation and Change (CERIC) on 23 and 24 March 2017
For more information and to register an interest in presenting go to:
https://goo.gl/forms/vculmjnNlt0fNjot2
The process of deindustrialisation has destabilised many working class
communities across the country. The large industrial workplaces (docks,
mines, steel works, potteries, and car plants) have often disappeared.
In towns which once had an industrial identity, that has gone, along
with the high levels of trade union engagement, the sports and social
clubs. Even the pubs are going. Meanwhile the once solid relationship
between the communities and their traditional representatives; the
Labour Party, has become more complex.
These post-industrial communities face a future where parents know that
their children's future is significantly less promising than their own
was, where 'career opportunities' are often limited to work in low wage
jobs such as retail parks and where the traditional sense of community
has often been replaced by an uneasy division along ethnic, social and
religious lines.
All of this raises a number of questions for academics, economists,
public health professionals, politicians, policy makers, trade
unionists, funders, anti-racists and community activists. This
conference aims to bring people from all these fields (as well as some
international speakers) together to discuss a number of these questions:
Why have new, high quality jobs, not replaced the ones that were lost?
What alternative economic choices are available (and why have they not
been adopted)?
What is the relationship between poverty and a growing fear/hatred of
the other (and can that relationship be changed)?
If myth busting doesnt change peoples minds, what sort of
conversations might undercut the emerging racism and fear in these
communities?
Given that these issues appear most dramatically in former industrial
towns, what insights can an analysis of place and space provide?
Can health inequalities be used as a inclusive issue around which
fractured communities can to mobilise as a step towards addressing
underlying issues of poverty and exclusion?
How can local communities rebuild the networks that have been lost?
What is the role of faith in these communities.?
But ultimately the really important question (that all of the above feed
into) is: how can the sense of economic and social decline in these
communities be reversed?.
At this stage we envisage a number of academic and practitioner panels
over the 2 days covering a range of topics related to the questions
above. We anticipate three or four panel speakers presenting for around
10 minutes followed by a discussant drawing out key points. This will
then feed into a series of workshops for conference attendees.
If you are interested in speaking in one of the panels then please write
(approx) 500 word outline of what you would like to say, along with a
short biography covering your expertise or key area of interest no later
than 18 January 2017. To do this go to:
https://goo.gl/forms/vculmjnNlt0fNjot2
--
Professor Jane Holgate
Professor of Work and Employment Relations
Work and Employment Relations Division
Leeds University Business School
31 Lyddon Terrace (room 2.05)
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
email: [log in to unmask]
Mobile: 07960 798399
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