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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Social classes
The twenty-first century has so far been characterized by ongoing realignments in the organization of the economy around housing and real estate. Markets have boomed and bust and boomed again with residential property increasingly a focus of wealth accumulation practices. While analyses have largely focussed on global flows of capital and large institutions, families have served as critical actors. Housing properties are family goods that shape how members interact, organise themselves, and deal with the vicissitudes of everyday economic life. Families have, moreover, increasingly mobilized around their homes as assets, aligning household transitions and practices towards the accumulation of property wealth. The capacities of different families to realise this, however, are highly uneven with housing conditions becoming increasingly central to growing inequalities and processes of social stratification. This book addresses changing relationships between families and their homes over the latest period of neo-liberalization. The book confronts how transformations in households, life-course transitions, kinship and intergenerational relations shape, and are being shaped by, the shifting role of property markets in social and economic processes. The chapters explore this in terms of different aspects of home, family life and socioeconomic change across varied national contexts.
A Times Business Book of the Year 2021 Whether it's working for free in exchange for 'experience', enduring poor treatment in the name of being 'part of the family', or clocking serious overtime for a good cause, more and more of us are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do work we enjoy. Work Won't Love You Back examines how we all bought into this 'labour of love' myth: the idea that certain work is not really work, and should be done for the sake of passion rather than pay. Through the lives and experiences of various workers-from the unpaid intern and the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit employee, the domestic worker and even the professional athlete-this compelling book reveals how we've all been tricked into a new tyranny of work. Sarah Jaffe argues that understanding the labour of love trap will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. Once freed, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure and satisfaction.
Economic Cycles and Social Movements: Past, Present and Future offers diverse perspectives on the complex interrelationship between social challenges and economic crises in the Modern World System. Written with a balance of quantitative, qualitative and theoretical contributions and insights, this volume provides a great opportunity to reflect upon the ongoing conceptual and empirical challenges when confronting the complex interrelations of various economic cycles and social movements. By engaging wide-ranging ideas and theoretical points of view from different disciplines, different countries and different perspectives, this study breaks new ground and offers novel insights into the way the capitalist world economy functions as well as the way social and political movements react to these constraints. Different chapters in this volume bring about novel interdisciplinary approaches to study business cycles, economic changes and social as well as political movements, offer new interpretations and, while examining the complexity of socioeconomic cycles in the long run, present epistemological challenges and a wide variety of empirical data that will increase our understanding of these complex interactions.
In the mid-twentieth century, corporations consolidated control over agriculture on the backs of Mexican migrant laborers through a guestworker system called the Bracero Program. The National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU) attempted to organize these workers but met with utter indifference from the AFL-CIO. Andrew J. Hazelton examines the NAWU's opposition to the Bracero Program against the backdrop of Mexican migration and the transformation of North American agriculture. His analysis details growers' abuse of the program to undercut organizing efforts, the NAWU's subsequent mobilization of reformers concerned by those abuses, and grower opposition to any restrictions on worker control. Though the union's organizing efforts failed, it nonetheless created effective strategies for pressuring growers and defending workers' rights. These strategies contributed to the abandonment of the Bracero Program in 1964 and set the stage for victories by the United Farm Workers and other movements in the years to come.
Here is a searing account-probably the best yet published-of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does. Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives. Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dalrymple's book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing-sometimes all at once. And Dalrymple writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.
First Published in 1971. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This collection contributes to an understanding of queer theory as a "queer share," addressing the urgent need to redistribute resources in a university world characterized by stark material disparities and embedded gendered, racial, national, and class inequities. From across a range of precarious and relatively secure positions, authors consider the changing politics of queer theory and the shifting practices of queers who, in moving from the margins toward the academic mainstream, differently negotiate resources, recognition, and returns. Contributors engage queer redistributions in all tiers of the class-stratified academy and across the UK, the US, Australia, Armenia, Canada, and Spain. They both indict academic hierarchy as a form of colonial knowledge-making and explore class contradictions via first-generation epistemologies, feminist care work in the pandemic, Black working-class visibility, non-peer institutional collaborations, and student labor. The volume reflects a commitment to interdisciplinary empirical and theoretical approaches and methodologies across anthropology, Black studies, cultural studies, education, feminist and women's studies, geography, Latinx studies, performance studies, postcolonial studies, public health, transgender studies, sociology, student affairs, and queer studies. This book is for readers seeking to better understand the broad class-based knowledge project that has become a defining feature of the field of queer studies.
The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England. Life in the court of the House of Stuart has been shrouded in mystery: the first half of the century overshadowed by the fall and execution of Charles I, the second half in the complete collapse of the House itself. Lost to time is the extraordinary contribution the Stuarts made to the fabric of sovereignty. Every palace they built, painting they commissioned, or artwork they acquired was a direct reflection of the lives that they led and the way that they thought. Palaces of Revolution explores this rich history in graphic detail, giving a unique insight into the lives of this famous dynasty. It takes us from Royston and Newmarket, where James I appropriated most of the town centre as a sort of rough-and-ready royal housing estate, to the steamy Turkish baths at Whitehall where Charles II seduced his mistresses. We see the intimate private lives of the monarchs, presented through the buildings in which they lived and the objects they commissioned, creating an entirely new narrative of the Stuart century. Palaces of Revolution traces this extraordinary period across the places and palaces on which the action played out, giving us a thrilling new history of this remarkable dynasty.
Caste in India, despite its historical resilience, has been undergoing transformation since independence. If caste as a system of rigid stratification has been on the decline, castes as autonomous interest-serving groups have been on ascendance. This book critically engages with the changing notions of caste and its intersection with public policy in India. It discusses key issues such as social security, internal reservation, the idea of Most Backward Classes, caste issues among non-Hindu religious communities, caste in census, caste in market, and service castes and urban planning. Drawing on in-depth case studies from states including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal, the volume explores the cyclical process of how caste drives policies, and how policies in turn shape the reality of caste in India. It looks at the impact of factors like protective discrimination, adult franchise and democratic decentralisation, horizontal and vertical mobilisation, land reforms, and religious conversion on social mobility, and traditional hierarchy in India. Empirically rich and analytically rigorous, this book will be an excellent reference for scholars and researchers of public policy, public administration, sociology, exclusion studies, social work, law, history, economics, political science, development studies, social anthropology, and political sociology. It will also be of interest to public policy and development practitioners.
A general expectation has developed that China's middle class will generate not only social but also political change. This expectation often overlooks the reality that there is no single Chinese middle class with a common identity or will to action. This timely volume examines the behaviour and identity of the different elements of China's middle class entrepreneurs, managers, and professionals - in order to understand their centrality to the wider processes of social and political change in China. The expert contributors seek to identify the social space occupied by the Chinese middle class rather than identifying social backgrounds and attitudes. In so doing they explore socio-political issues, the development of a consumer society, relationships between gender and class in the workplace, home-ownership and the appearance of gated communities, and the political interaction between the Party-state and the entrepreneurial middle classes and their impact on the new institutional economics. Providing a more nuanced understanding of the structure of the middle class in China and identifying dynamic elements in their behaviour, this unique book will prove a fascinating and thought provoking read for academics, students and researchers with an interest in Asian studies and public policy. Contributors include: C. Cartier, M. Chen, L. Chunling, D.S.G. Goodman, H. Hendrischke, D. Jianzhong, Y. Jing, J. Liu, J.L. Rocca, B. Tang, J. Unger
Caste in India, despite its historical resilience, has been undergoing transformation since independence. If caste as a system of rigid stratification has been on the decline, castes as autonomous interest-serving groups have been on ascendance. This book critically engages with the changing notions of caste and its intersection with public policy in India. It discusses key issues such as social security, internal reservation, the idea of Most Backward Classes, caste issues among non-Hindu religious communities, caste in census, caste in market, and service castes and urban planning. Drawing on in-depth case studies from states including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal, the volume explores the cyclical process of how caste drives policies, and how policies in turn shape the reality of caste in India. It looks at the impact of factors like protective discrimination, adult franchise and democratic decentralisation, horizontal and vertical mobilisation, land reforms, and religious conversion on social mobility, and traditional hierarchy in India. Empirically rich and analytically rigorous, this book will be an excellent reference for scholars and researchers of public policy, public administration, sociology, exclusion studies, social work, law, history, economics, political science, development studies, social anthropology, and political sociology. It will also be of interest to public policy and development practitioners.
First published in 1978, The Working Class in Welfare Capitalism looks at the position of the working class in the Swedish pattern of welfare capitalism and compares it with other capitalist industrial countries. Beginning with an analysis of class, class conflict, power and social change in classical and modern social theory, Professor Korpi discusses the development of the Swedish labour movement and its strategies of class conflict. He focuses on the situation of the worker at the workplace and in the community, on the functioning of the labour union, on industrial conflict, and on the political views and standpoints of the workers. He also examines political developments in Sweden and discusses the prospects for a development towards economic democracy. A challenging and comprehensive study of Swedish social democracy in action, carried out by a Swede within a comparative frame of reference, the book presents an analysis which is of central relevance to all capitalist societies, especially when mass communist parties in Europe appear to be moving towards reformistic socialism. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, social class, economy and history.
Value is typically theorized from the frameworks of economic theory or of moral/ethical theory, but we need to instead think about value foremost as political. Alena Wolflink uncovers a tension in value discourses between material and aspirational life. As she shows, erasing this tension, as has been the historical tendency, can entrench existing configurations of power and privilege, while acknowledging the tension is a vital part of democratic practice. Using genealogical, conceptual-historical, and interpretive approaches, and drawing from such diverse sources as Aristotle, Anna Julia Cooper, Michael Warner, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Wolflink argues that abstractions of value discourse in both economic theory and moral philosophy have been complicit in devaluing the lives of women, queer people, and people of color. Yet she further argues that value claims nonetheless hold democratic potential as a means of asserting and defining priorities that center the role of political economy in the making of political communities. With many real-world examples vividly portrayed, Claiming Value is an unusually accessible work of political theory accessible to students in courses on political theory, moral philosophy, social theory, economic theory, democracy, social inequality, and more.
Value is typically theorized from the frameworks of economic theory or of moral/ethical theory, but we need to instead think about value foremost as political. Alena Wolflink uncovers a tension in value discourses between material and aspirational life. As she shows, erasing this tension, as has been the historical tendency, can entrench existing configurations of power and privilege, while acknowledging the tension is a vital part of democratic practice. Using genealogical, conceptual-historical, and interpretive approaches, and drawing from such diverse sources as Aristotle, Anna Julia Cooper, Michael Warner, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Wolflink argues that abstractions of value discourse in both economic theory and moral philosophy have been complicit in devaluing the lives of women, queer people, and people of color. Yet she further argues that value claims nonetheless hold democratic potential as a means of asserting and defining priorities that center the role of political economy in the making of political communities. With many real-world examples vividly portrayed, Claiming Value is an unusually accessible work of political theory accessible to students in courses on political theory, moral philosophy, social theory, economic theory, democracy, social inequality, and more.
Aneurin Bevan is a revered figure in Welsh and British politics, celebrated for his role as the founder of one of the country's most cherished institutions, the National Health Service. As a result, Bevan is continuously invoked, quoted widely, and is praised for his principles. However, Bevan was not only a significant politician. He was also a prolific writer, contributing extensively to the socialist magazine Tribune from its founding in 1937 until his death in 1960. This is My Truth represents the first edited collection of these writings. Beginning with an introduction that charts Bevan's writing career and emphasises Bevan's legacy, the collection showcases Bevan's analysis of class conflict, capitalism, democracy, the world and democratic socialism. This is My Truth provides readers with the opportunity to read Bevan in his own words and to reflect on a figure who remains a source of inspiration and controversy today.
A "brilliant" (The Washington Post), "clear-eyed and incisive" (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone-including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What's left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country-and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of "merit" to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us-or what we are supposed to want to be. In this "captivating account" (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
This book analyses social change in Russia, in particular the development of a middle class, one of the most important social and political projects of Putin's administration. Using unique survey data collected in 1998, 2007 and 2015, the authors make extensive and theoretically justified analyses of the changing social distinctions in Russia over the past 20 years. Offering a sophisticated analysis of classes and class they acknowledge that in class analysis there are different phases, requiring different concepts. The first phase is the analysis of class positions; the second is the study of the work and reproduction situations of class groups and the final step is the analysis of class interests. While acknowledging that there are a number Russian-specific factors that seriously complicate traditional class analysis, the authors maintain that the basic tenets of class analysis still hold true. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, political science, transition studies, social policy and Russian studies and anyone who wants to understand the internal divisions and organization of the middle class in Russia.
Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes-a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates. Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers and private-sector oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while those below them, the new Serfs, grow in numbers-a vast, expanding property-less population. The trends are mounting, but we can still reverse them-if people understand what is actually occurring and have the capability to oppose them.
Across Africa the narrative of "Africa rising" has taken root in a burgeoning middle class. Ambitious and increasingly affluent, this group symbolizes the values and hopes of the new Africa, and they are regarded as important agents of both economic development and democratic change. This narrative, however, obscures the complex and often ambiguous role that this group actually plays in African societies. The Rise Of Africa's Middle Class brings together a diverse range of economists, political scientists, and development experts to provide a much needed corrective, overturning the received wisdom within development circles and providing a fresh new perspective on social transformations in contemporary Africa. Featuring a wide array of case studies from across sub-Saharan Africa and covering highly topical issues, including black middle-class support for the ANC in South Africa and anti-government activism in Nigeria, this collection of essays is a timely, on-the-ground look at the realities behind the idea of Africa rising.
Originally published in 1986, this book discusses issues such as social class differences in health; the effect of unemployment on health; the relationship between income and health; how much of the class differences in death rates can be explained in terms of medically recognized factors. Presenting empirical research to resolve these issues, the book takes health to the centre of the political stage and raises fundamental issues about the direction of modern economic and social development and its impact on inequality. As relevant now as when it was first published the book reviews twenty of the most important longitudinal studies in the area of health and class that had been carried out in the UK at the time.
Fighting Global Neo-Extractivism: Fossil-Free Social Movements in South Africa analyzes social struggles over damaging new fossil fuel projects in the Global South with a focus on South Africa, Africa's biggest fossil fuel emitter. Fossil fuel extraction in South Africa has reached a new accelerated phase in which the fossil fuel frontier is moving beyond historical 'sacrifice zones' into non-traditional spaces, such as conservation parks and middle-class neighbourhoods, and provoking fervent opposition from grassroots activists. This book examines campaigns such as Frack Free South Africa and Save our iMfolozi Wilderness, viewing them as struggles against neo-extractivism driven by the state and industry. Through a series of detailed case studies, it highlights the shaping of mobilisation patterns by prior land use practices and the capacity to mobilize different social groups across race and class. Developing the notion of the fossil fuel frontier as the material and political boundary that activists in South Africa and elsewhere in the world render visible, this volume provides a theoretical framework to understanding global mobilization patterns. This timely and impassioned book will appeal to students and researchers interested in a range of subjects, including environmentalism, social movements, political ecology, and development studies.
This book is the first national study of the football pools in Britain which examines the politics and culture of the gambling on the football pools. It charts the rise of the football pools, focusing upon its rapid growth from the 1920s and its prolonged decline in British culture from the 1990s, partly as a result of the National Lottery. The book explores how this new gambling activity became a significant leisure opportunity for the working class - a way to feel that the individual skill of the punter could lead to the winning of some life-changing jackpot cheque being presented by a sporting personality of celebrity. Dominated by Littlewoods, and other large commercial companies, the weekly filling-in of the coupons was considered to be a safe form of investment, guaranteed by the integrity of the pool companies, rather than some seedy gambling operation. The Football Pools and the British Working Class looks at different elements of the football pools from what attracted people to this form of gambling to how the industry developed and adjusted to the suspension of the football fixtures in 1936, and the bad winter of 1962-3. Above all, it examines the deep hostility that surrounded the filling in of the football pools arising from the National Anti-Gambling League, religious groups, the football authorities and MPs. This book will appeal to all those interested in the history of British football and 20th century British working class culture.
Part of the New Approaches to Sociology series, Social Inequalities is a relevant and valuable exploration of how we see the world, through a decolonised lens. Aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, this textbook offers a critical re-reading of traditional approaches to understanding social inequalities and responds to the call from university administrations, academics and students to decolonise the curriculum and challenge its lack of diversity. It presents an intersectional approach to understanding diversity and social inequalities and, in so doing, allows for alternative knowledge sources and voices to be heard. From looking at social groups such as race, age, sexuality and class alongside a nuanced evaluation of traditional sociological theories such as Marxism, functionalism and feminism - this book is an expert guide to the debates central to understanding the challenges individuals face in society. Including personal stories and case studies, students will be exposed to an authentic and real-world view of how individuals have encountered discrimination. Social Inequalities is an essential resource for anyone working and studying across sociology, and anyone interested in challenging established ways of looking at the world. Professor Anya Ahmed, Dr Deirdre Duffy and Dr Lorna Chesterton work in the faculty of health and education at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. |
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