Considering class: theory, culture and the media in the 21st century

335 Pages·2018·4.406 MB·English

by  O'Neill, Deirdre;Wayne, Mike

Considering Class
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Studies in
Critical Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest (Wayne State University)
Editorial Board
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Duke University)
Chris Chase-Dunn (University of California-Riverside)
William Carroll (University of Victoria)
Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney)
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw (University of California, la, and
Columbia University)
Heidi Gottfried (Wayne State University)
Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen)
Mary Romero (Arizona State University)
Alfredo Saad-Filho (University of London)
Chizuko Ueno (University of Tokyo)
Sylvia Walby (Lancaster University)
VOLUME 113
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scss
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Considering Class
Theory, Culture and the Media in the 21st Century
Edited by
Deirdre O’Neill
Mike Wayne
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: ‘Steamfitter’, created by Peter Keighron (www.justseewhatyouthink.com).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: O’Neill, Deirdre, 1956- editor. | Wayne, Mike, editor.
Title: Considering class : theory, culture and the media in the 21st century
/ edited by Deirdre O’Neill, Mike Wayne.
Description: Boston : Brill, [2018] | Series: Studies in critical social
sciences ; 113 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017042300 (print) | LCCN 2017043062 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004319523 (E-book) | isbn 9789004319516 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Social classes--History. | Social stratification. | Working
class--History--21st century. | Culture--21st century. | Mass
media--Social aspects.
Classification: LCC HT609 (ebook) | LCC HT609 .C666 2018 (print) | DDC
305.5/12--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042300
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1573-4234
isbn 978-90-04-31951-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-31952-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill
Sense and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Notes on Contributors iX
1 Introduction 1
Deirdre O’Neill and Mike Wayne
part 1
Class Theory
2 Class and the Classical Marxist Tradition 15
Joseph Choonara
3 Social Class and Education 31
Dave Hill
4 Marxist Class Theory: Competition, Contingency and Intermediate
Class Positions 51
Jonathan Pratschke
5 Class Segregation 68
Danny Dorling
6 The ‘Secret’ of the Restoration: Increased Class Exploitation 93
Maurizio Donato and Roberto Taddeo
7 Exploitation, Oppression, and Epistemology 114
Holly Lewis
part 2
Class and Culture
8 Peasants, Migrants and Self-Employed Workers: The Masks that Veil
Class Affiliation in Latin America: The Argentine Case 133
Marina Kabat and Eduardo Sartelli
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vi Contents
9 Capitalism, Class and Collective Identity: Social Movements and
Public Services in South Africa 149
Adrian Murray
10 On Intellectuals 166
Deirdre O’Neill and Mike Wayne
11 The British Working Class Post-Blair Consensus: We Do Not Exist 185
Lisa Mckenzie
12 From Class Solidarity to Cultural Solidarity: Immigration, Crises,
and the Populist Right 198
Ferruh Yılmaz
13 Recovering the Australian Working Class 217
Tony Moore, Mark Gibson and Catharine Lumby
part 3
Class and the Media
14 ‘Everything Changes. Everything Stays the Same’: Documenting
Continuity and Change in Working Class Lives 237
Anita Biressi
15 Ghettos and Gated Communities in the Social Landscape of
Television: Representations of Class in 1982 and 2015 255
Fredrik Stiernstedt and Peter Jakobsson
16 Class, Culture and Exploitation: The Case of Reality tv 273
Milly Williamson
17 Class Warfare, the Neoliberal Man and the Political Economy of
Methamphetamine in Breaking Bad 288
Michael Seltzer
18 ‘The Thing Is I’m Actually from Bromley’: Queer/Class
Intersectionality in Pride (2014) 303
Craig Haslop
Index 317
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List of Illustrations
Figures
5.1 Social class residential segregation in Britain, all ages, 2001 71
5.2 Social class financial segregation in Britain, 2011 74
5.3 Changes in financial segregation in Britain 1968–2005 76
5.4 The segregation of political belief by area in Britain 1981–2015 77
5.5 The English geography of class segregation in education, 2005 82
5.6 Social mobility, income inequality and education mobility, selected countries,
2008–2009 83
5.7 Rising and then falling income inequalities, all countries, 1200–2000 85
5.8A I nequality in wealth, international, gdp, 2002 86
5.8b Inequality in food international, undernourishment, 2002 86
5.9 Inequality in income in Britain, top 1%, 1918–2011 87
5.10 Inequality in income in Britain, gini, 1961–2008 89
6.1 Employment in advanced economies (average annual growth) 96
6.2 Part-time employment, percent of population 96
6.3 Annual hours worked per worker in oecd countries 97
6.4 Annual hours worked per person, most recent years 98
6.5 Labour productivity trends in European Union and United States of
America 101
6.6 Labour productivity (levels) in G7 101
6.7 Hours worked per employee (rates of change) in us and eu 102
6.8 Real hourly wages in usa (1933–2012) 104
6.9 Share of labour compensation in gdp at current national prices for United
States 107
6.10 Productivity and wages 109
14.1 Ray provides a historical perspective in the film 246
14.2 Interviewees reflect on the past outside the Royal Bank of Scotland which was
rescued by taxpayers following the 2007–2008 crash 247
14.3 Angie fears for her children’s future 249
14.4 Collective cast curtain call 250
Tables
3.1 The office for national statistics classification of occupations 33
5.1 An example of segregation by race and class in Britain: Medical school 79
5.2 Class residential segregation in Britain, 1997–2005 (%) 90
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viii List of Illustrations
6.1 Labour productivity trend in oecd countries 100
15.1 The social classes as represented on television in 1982 and 2015 263
15.2 Occupations among persons on television in 2015 264
15.3 Gender among different social classes in the television output in 1982
and 2015 265
15.4 Nationality among different social classes in 1982 and 2015 266
15.5 Social classes in different types of television output 1982 and 2015 267
15.6 The class composition of reality television in 2015 267
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Notes on Contributors
Anita Biressi
is Professor of Media and Society at the University of Roehampton, London.
Her research interests include documentary and popular factual program-
ming, feminist media studies and social class. She is the co-author of Class and
Contemporary British Culture (Palgrave, 2013).
Joseph Choonara
is working on a PhD at Middlesex University, focusing on class, precarity and
insecurity in the uk. He is a member of the editorial board of International
Socialism, a columnist on Socialist Review and the author of Unravelling
Capitalism: A Guide to Marxist Political Economy (Bookmarks, 2009).
Maurizio Donato
is a Researcher in Political Economy currently working in the Department of
Law at the University of Teramo, Italy. His main research interest is to analyze
the dynamics of the crisis and its impact on the working class from a Marxian
perspective. He also likes to work with non-academic co-authors.
Danny Dorling
is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Ox-
ford. He grew up in Oxford and went to University in Newcastle upon Tyne.
He has worked in Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield and New Zealand. His
work concerns issues of housing, health, employment, education, inequality
and poverty—and cartography. His most recent books include Injustice (Policy
Press, 2015), Inequality and the 1% (Verso, 2014) and A Better Politics (London
Publishing Partnership, 2016).
Mark Gibson
is Head of Communications and Media Studies at Monash University,
Australia. He has research interests in suburban cultures, cultural and creative
industries, media practices and class. He is author of Culture and Power—A
History of Cultural Studies (Bloomsbury Academic, 2007) and, until recently,
editor of Continuum—Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.
Craig Haslop
is a Lecturer in Media in the department of Communication and Media at the
University of Liverpool. His main research interests are representations of ‘lad
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