Great Expectations? Childhood,Family, and Middle-Class Social Mobility in Nineteenth-Century England

ABSTRACT

Existing histories of social mobility have focused on adults and on measuring the achievement of individual upward mobility. However, children and families were central to mobility strategies. Using the papers of the Heywoods of Bolton, this article examines how the families of the industrial middle class endowed their offspring with the goods and character needed to secure their social standing, highlighting the emotional intricacy of these processes. It demonstrates that such families conceived of social mobility as a familial project and that rather than pursuing upward mobility, their chief objective was to guard against social decline.     

Life Narratives and Personal Identity: The End of Linear Social Mobility?

ABSTRACT

This paper uses visualisations of life trajectories drawn from the 1958 National Child Development Survey to show how this generation refused linear narratives of mobility in favour of jags and turning points. We argue that these visualisations demonstrate the limitations of conventional class-based interpretations of social mobility. . We show how these jags represent moments of switching between public and private lives, demonstrating the interruptions which this generation display. We argue that these visualisations are consistent with the distinctive historical conditions ofthis generation, especially its female members, We conclude that more studiesof popular identities of social mobility are needed.     

Women,Education and Social Mobility in Britain during the Long 1970s

ABSTRACT

Through analysis of oral history interviews and quantitative source material, this article offers a gendered model of social mobility in the post-war decades. It argues that women born between the late 1930s and early 1950s achieved social mobility through entering post-secondary education after a period of employment, followed by occupational movement into the welfare professions. Women’s mobility primarily occurred in the long 1970s, facilitated by the Wilson government’s investment in the welfare state and its expansion of further education and creation of the polytechnics. This challenges the predominantly masculinised trope of the grammar school as the driver of post-war mobility.     

Comment: Social Mobility and the Historians

ABSTRACT

This special issue shows what distinctive contributions historians can make to the study of social mobility in modern Britain, with their strengths in micro analysis, in assembling a dense web of cause and effect, and in taking an equal interest in experience and representation. There remain significant opportunities for historians and sociologists to combine their strengths in this enterprise.     

Vicarious Vagrants: Incognito Social Explorers and the Homeless in England, 1860–1910. Edited by Mark Freeman and Gillian Nelson

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to place the debate about affluent working-class people in the inter-war and post-war periods within the broader context of long-term economic and social change. It explores why important structural changes were ignored for a long time, and how they came into view as the focus of professional social inquiry shifted following the Second World War, only to be reconceptualized as a new ‘social problem’ in the politically driven controversy about ‘affluence’ in the late 1950s. The article argues that we need to pay more attention to the gulf between official and vernacular understandings of social class in twentiethcentury Britain, drawing a distinction between everyday usage and professional languages of class.     

Defining Early Modern Automobility

ABSTRACT

Automobility lies at the heart of contemporary analysis of the social relations of mobility. Thus far, however, it lacks a history. This article seeks to rectify that omission by interrogating the road traffic accident crisis which afflicted Manchester in the early years of the Second World War. The article proposes a provisional chronology for automobility in twentieth-century Britain: a lengthy phase between 1920 and 1970, dominated by the interests of private motorists, and a modern sub-period between 1970 and the near present. The latter era witnessed a gradual, and then an increasingly rapid, movement towards meeting the needs of non-drivers.     

The lyrics of laborious life: popular music and the reassertion of migrant manhood in Northeastern Thailand

Abstract

The focal subject under investigation in this paper is the gendered identities of overseas male migrant workers as presented in the contemporary popular song lyrics from Northeastern Thailand. My reading of such lyrics is informed by my ethnographic fieldwork of Thai migrant workers in Singapore. I intend to uncover some complex, cultural junctures of transnational labor migration, in which men, mobility, and music have come across and formed a social force to reshape cultural imagination of migrant manhood. I argue that popular music celebrates male heroism of overseas migrant workers. Instead of challenging existing structures of hegemonic masculinity in the region, popular song texts poetically reaffirm and reassert the traditional dominant gender ideology and cultural practice. Overseas workmen are usually depicted as hard‐working, self‐sacrificial heroes in their attempts to rescue their families as well as romantic, caring lovers and morally responsible fathers.     

Consuming Popular Music: Individualism,Politics and Progressive Rock

Historians have maintained that popular music had an influence upon individuals and in turn society. Yet the historiography of popular music has focused far more on bands and wider social reactions to the music than on understanding how and why fans consumed music. This article demonstrates how a more fan-centric approach can allow for more subtle understandings of the influence and role of popular music in the twentieth century. During the 1970s, progressive rock was an important part of life for many young music fans. It provided them with escape, entertainment and a sense of individualism, community and intellectual reward, much of which centred upon the idea that the genre was different, uncommercial and difficult to access and understand. Progressive rock also encouraged some debate around issues of class amongst the young and helped cement the importance of individualism in middle-class and educated circles. However, many of the values articulated in progressive rock, not least the discontent with contemporary society and the emphasis on intellectual values, were also shared by many within the broader social framework that fans wanted to rebel against. Moreover, other musical subgenres liked to imagine themselves as similarly ‘different’ and thus progressive rock shows that the real significance of popular music for historians is not the music itself but rather how it was consumed and thought about by the fans themselves.     

Comfort,Class and Climate Change: The Rise of Glass in Late Medieval and Early Modern Domestic Architecture

ABSTRACT

In the modern world, glass windows are considered an indispensable element of the built environment. Throughout premodern times, however, glass was not universally used in European architecture. This article argues that the rise of glass in Western architecture was neither an inevitable nor a linear process, but rather a response to certain social, cultural and environmental factors that gained increasing relevance from the late medieval period onwards. In other words, glass windows are a cultural convention, reflecting some of the wide-ranging and transformative challenges that Europeans faced in the late medieval and early modern period.     

Rethinking the coming home alternative: hybridization and coming out politics in Hong Kong’s anti‐homophobia parades

Abstract

In calling for the need to think about sexuality globally, scholars have given increasing attention to the historical specificities of local contexts. The return to the local, however, may not always be fruitful when the local and the global or the Western and the non‐Western are seen as binary opposites rather than permeable constructs. This paper examines the coming home/coming out controversy and calls into question the understanding of coming home as local resistance against global queering. It instead suggests the possibilities of cultural hybridity and blending of coming out and coming home. Using the First and the Second International Day Against Homophobia Hong Kong Parades as an example, this paper elucidates the complexity of cultural production in the interactions of the West and Non‐West, with attention on the effect of transnational mobility of political rhetoric and tactics.     

Postcolonial film historiography in Taiwan and South Korea: The Puppetmaster and Chihwaseon

Abstract

This essay is concerned with the ways in which postcolonial historiography is inscribed in cinema. Two representative films of Taiwan and South Korea, The Puppetmaster by Hou Hsiao‐Hsien ¹ 1. Names in Chinese, Korean and Japanese are written in the order of family name followed by given name. For example, Hou Hsiao‐Hsien, Im Kwontaek. and Chihwaseon by Im Kwontaek are compared, not only to understand the working of de‐colonization in the cinematic apparatus but also to understand the impact, effects of colonial history. The notion of postcolonial filmmaking as an alternative construction of the archive is evoked to locate film practice in the intersecting spaces of repository, historiography, cinematic representation and social memory. Hence, these two films are cited as instances of illuminating retrospection on fractured pasts, the almost‐invisible archive and the future cinematically envisioned by suggesting a sustainable postcolonial episteme in the age of global spectatorship.     

Thai democracy and the October (1973–1976) events

Abstract

Thai Democracy: Three Decades After October 14 (in Thai) edited by historian Charnvit Kasetsiri (2003 Charnvit, Kasetsiri, ed. 2003. Thai Democracy: Three Decades After October 14 (Sam Thotsawat 14 Tula kab Prachatipatai), Bangkok: Foundation for the Promotion of Social Science and Humanities Textbooks Project. (In Thai.). Public Lectures Open University Series, [Google Scholar]) offers an entrée into understanding how Thailand’s 1970s social movements and state violence register in current politics and Thai historiography. The anthology was put together to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the October 14, 1973 uprising, which led to the temporary exile of the past military regime. The contributors are varied across the academic disciplines, with speeches and newspaper articles by public intellectuals, politicians, and poet/writers. Those in Thai and Southeast Asian Studies will find this an invaluable resource. For those who do not read Thai, the VCD provides two English subtitled documentaries produced by Charnvit Kasetsiri. One features the historical events and the other is a walking tour of the numerous landmarks of the October 14, 1973 uprising.     

Self-rated health,gender, and acculturative stress among immigrants in the U.S.: New roles for social support

BackgroundBased on different outcomes, immigrants to the U.S. may experience a decline in health with length of time or acculturation. Acculturative stress is often applied as an explanation for these changes and may be impacted by social supports and social networks, but more information is needed on the specific role of each. Thus far little research has examined acculturative stress and health by both ethnicity and gender.MethodsDrawing on the 2002–2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), we examine data on a nationally-representative sample of foreign-born Latino (N = 1,627) and Asian (N = 1,638) adults living in the United States. We examine relationships between acculturative stress and self-rated physical and mental health, as well as the potential role of social support factors, with a primary focus on gender.ResultsAs a group Latinos report more acculturative stress than Asians. However, among Latino immigrants acculturative stress has no association with health, and for Asian immigrants there is an association with physical health among women and mental health among men – but only the latter persisted after adjusting for controls. We do find that among Latino men and women, acculturative stress is health damaging when specific types of social support are low but can even be health promoting at higher support levels.DiscussionWhile self-rated health differs among immigrant groups, we find that acculturative stress may not be the primary driving force behind these differences, but interacts with specific elements of social support to produce unique impacts on health by gender and ethnicity.     

Capturing the vanishing point: Subjective experiences and cultural value

This article is prompted by the observation that many accounts of the value of the arts and culture have failed to engage first-order, empirical data and to take full account of the experiences of those directly involved in cultural activities and practices. This neglect is the result of a complex path dependency. The more obvious explanation is that the current situation is caused by too much humanism in the field of cultural studies, that is, the tendency to think of cultural value as an “‘ineffable’ human moment which somehow lies outside this purview of representational method” (Law, J., Rupert, E., & Savage, M. [2011 Law, J., Rupert, E., & Savage, M. (2011). The double social life of methods. Milton Keynes: CRESC. [Google Scholar]]. The double social life of methods. Milton Keynes: CRESC). This may well be true in some cases but it is not the main reason why empirical and experiential data have been lacking. The absence of the phenomenological dimension is, to the contrary, best explained by not enough humanism in cultural studies. The reluctance to embrace the first-person perspective was motivated by an anxiety that this would make cultural theorists and sociologists complicit with the “dubious” theories of subjecthood originating in idealism. The default outcome of this has been the preponderance of structuralism in cultural studies which led to anti-empiricism and “theoretical heavy breathing” (Thompson, E. P. [1995]. The poverty of theory: Or an orryery of errors. London: Merlin Press). I argue that to overcome the current impasse, cultural theorists and the theorists of cultural value specifically must revisit this self-incurred suspicion of first-order constructs and address their unease with the category of experience by actively engaging first-person data. In short, the remedy I prescribe is to embrace elements of empirical, phenomenological sociology as part of the methodological framework. Looking at three projects funded by the AHRC Cultural Value Project, I show how this can be practically achieved. I conclude with some reflections on how the considerations presented here might have broader implications for the future research into cultural value, sociological inquiry and cultural policy.     

The unseen presence: a theory of the nation-state and its mystifications

Abstract

Primary nation-state formation took place in Europe between the 12th and 19th centuries, along with the emergence of a system of industry-based international relations. These processes kept mostly in step with changes in the cultural consciousnesses of their citizenries. The institutional pattern so produced was then imitated throughout the rest of world in more than 160 secondary nation-states. Unlike the primary nation-states, the secondary nation-states were declared into being overnight by political entrepreneurs concerned to ensure that their own territories could deal equally under international law with other such states. These rapid, externally generated processes generated a gap in consciousness between the statesmen and the rest of their populations that had to be closed before the secondary states could begin to fulfil their (mainly economic) international roles. The gap has been bridged by the deliberate engineering of concern for ethnic, gender, linguistic, class, cultural and religious “identity.” An abstract, outward-looking, gesellschaftlich mode of consciousness could now be taken for granted by the people as the unspoken terms on which they must live their lives. This process has been aided by the widespread employment of functionalist and systems-based approaches in the social sciences and humanities, which properly apply only to the nation-state. Consequently, a politically constructed institution has been made into the “natural” archetype against which all other phenomena are to be measured.     

Are the creative industries meritocratic? An analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey

ABSTRACT

There is currently widespread concern that Britain’s cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are increasingly dominated by the privileged. This stands in stark contrast to dominant policy narratives of the CCIs as meritocratic. Until now this debate has been clouded by a relative paucity of data on class origins. This paper draws on new social origin data from the 2014 Labour Force Survey to provide the first large-scale, representative study of the class composition of Britain’s creative workforce. The analysis demonstrates that CCIs show significant variation in their individual “openness”, although there is a general under-representation of those from working-class origins across the sector. This under-representation is especially pronounced in publishing and music, in contrast to, for example, craft. Moreover, even when those from working-class backgrounds enter certain CCIs, they face a “class origin pay gap” compared to those from privileged backgrounds. The paper discusses how class inequalities, as well as those related to gender and ethnicity, between individual CCIs point to occupational subcultures that resist aggregation into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s broader category of CCIs. The paper concludes by suggesting the importance of disaggregating CCIs and rethinking the definition and boundaries of CCIs as a meaningful category.     

Effecting cultural change from below? A comparison of Cape Town and Bandung's pathways to urban cultural governance

ABSTRACT

This article compares the cultural governance pathways of two UNESCO “Design Cities” – Bandung and Cape Town – methodologically framing them as “repeated instances” [Robinson, J. (2018). Policy mobilities as comparison: Urbanization processes, repeated instances, topologies. Revista de Administração Pública, 52(2), 221–243] of a globalized drive towards more creative cities. While the value of mobilizing culture for local urban change in rapidly growing cities of the global South is increasingly recognized [Mbaye, J., & Dinardi, C. (2018). Ins and outs of the cultural polis: Informality, culture and governance in the global South. Urban Studies, 56(3), 578–593], postcolonial urban scholars have rightly questioned whether internationally popular cultural policy approaches are able to speak to their complex challenges, underpinned by informality and the after-effects of colonialism [Pieterse, E. (2006). Building with ruins and dreams: Some thoughts on realising integrated urban development in South Africa through crisis. Urban Studies, 43(2), 285–304]. As postcolonial states are slowly shifting away from a centralized cultural institution model linked to symbolic nation building projects [Booyens, I. (2012). Creative industries, inequality and social development: developments, impacts and challenges in Cape Town. Urban Forum, 23(1), 43–60], travelling cultural policies brought in by foreign agencies and adapted by local epistemic communities have inspired a range of responses that can be broadly described as cultural policy innovation from below Cohen, D. (2015). Grounding mobile policies: Ad hoc networks and the creative city in Bandung, Indonesia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 36(2015), 23–37]. In turn, we examine how different cultural policy approaches have been locally mobilized and reworked in Bandung and Cape Town in response to situated realities and in partnerships between cultural, academic, business and local government actors. We argue that comparing the emerging “creative cityness” [Nkula-Wenz, L. (2018a). Worlding Cape Town by design: Encounters with creative cityness. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1–17] of both cities provides valuable insights into the opportunities and challenges of urban cultural governance in the global South.     

Transformation and job creation in the cultural and creative industries in South Africa

The cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been hailed as offering great potential to create jobs and to be socially inclusive. Since artistic success is defined by individual talent, or merit, the CCIs should be one sector that is especially open to, and appreciative of, social diversity in terms of race, class, cultural group and gender. However, as expected, recent studies in both the UK and the US have revealed that employment in the CCIs is heavily dominated by the middle classes, and is not as diverse in terms of other characteristics. Since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, transformation of firm ownership, previously dominated by white people, to include more black, coloured and Indian/Asian-origin South Africans, has been an important part of achieving greater economic equality and social cohesion, as well as being more representative of the cultures of the majority of the population. Using data from a survey of 2400 CCIs firms in South Africa, this paper examines the extent to which the CCIs in South Africa have transformed in terms of ownership and employment. Comparisons are also made across the six UNESCO [(2009). Framework for cultural statistics. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/culture/Pages/framework-cultural-statistics.aspx] “Cultural Domains” in terms of ownership, average monthly turnover and the number of full-time, part-time and contract employees. Results show some diversity in the industry, but significant differences between the Domains. Statistical analysis demonstrates that CCI funding policy in South Africa is sensitive to advancing the transformation agenda in that more transformed firms were shown to be more likely to have received some form of government grant as part of their income.     

Working practices in Thai independent film production and distribution 1

Abstract

In the late 1990s, independent Thai films became a new burgeoning industry, with the beginnings of international recognition. Taking three case studies, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon (), Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Voodoo Girls (2003 Thunska, Pansittivorakul. 2004. Personal interview, 19 February [Google Scholar]) and Aditya Assarat and Mingmongkol Sonakul’s Ma‐mee/ Three Friends (), I argue that the digital format for DVD/VCDs is paving the way for independent filmmakers/producers to participate in the art film market abroad and to cut production costs. Following the economics of money flows makes it clear that ‘independent film’ in Thailand is less about economic independence than a type of branding and packaging of aesthetics and content. While film, economically, is never outside the workings of capital, the content and style of the three film projects considered here seek to break out of the conventions set by the commercial Thai film narrative style.