Sent on behalf of Colm Breathnach
Dear colleague,
We invite you to join us
for the launch conference of the
The period since the
mid-1970s has seen a paradoxical development in relation to the subject of
social class. The opening up of massive disparities of wealth and power –
in other words, increasing class differences – has been accompanied by
academic and media claims that, in the West at least, the concept of social
class no longer plays any useful explanatory function, or that classes have
ceased to matter except as forms of cultural identity, or even – in the
most extreme versions – that classes have ceased to exist. Behind claims
that classes in general are disappearing, it is usually the working class in
particular that is meant.
In effect, these claims
amount to saying that the majority of people have been incorporated into an
ever-expanding middle-class. The rest are seen as falling into one of three
groups: the “excluded” – the “chavs”,
“neds” and other peripheral estate dwellers represented in popular
culture by the grotesque caricatures of Shameless
and Little Britain; workers in
the “traditional” blue-collar occupations which are assumed to be
in terminal decline; and public sector workers who are treated as an
unproductive, self-interested drain on the honest taxpayers who are required to
pay for their supposedly bloated salaries and gold-plated pensions.
Scholarship
can play an important role in undermining these narratives of denial or
denigration. Inspired by the success of similar institutions at London
Metropolitan University, Youngstown State University in Ohio, and Stony Brook
University in New York, academics from across Strathclyde’s Faculties and
Schools have come together to establish the first Centre
for the Study of Working Class Lives in Scotland.
Its purpose is to examine the historical and contemporary working class at a
Scottish, British and global level, with particular attention to the changing
nature of work itself; and to the changing composition of the class in relation
to gender and the role of migrant labour.
The Centre will act as a
multi- and interdisciplinary hub for theoretical, empirical and archival work
on social class. Among other activities, it will:
·
host PhDs and research projects;
·
commission articles and conference
papers to be published or delivered under its auspices;
·
hold conferences on specific
class-related themes;
·
organise exhibitions around
particular industries, communities and struggles; and
·
create a web resource containing
archival material, reports on research-in-progress, and recordings and
photographs which capture the collective memory and contemporary reality of
working class experiences; and
·
become a recognised source for
informed comment on the subject of social class for the media.
We will welcome
collaboration with colleagues in other HE institutions and with partners in the
third sector and civil society, including museums, libraries, trade unions and
community groups.
Our one-day launch
conference on Friday 11th March 2011 will be opened by
For programme and
registration form please contact any of the organisers below. Please note that,
as places are limited, prior registration is essential.
Colm Breathnach [log in to unmask] (0141) 548 2216
School of Applied Social
Sciences/Centre for the Study of Working Class Lives