Class E-Book

Laura Harvey

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

What do we mean by social class in the 21st century? University of Brighton sociologists Laura Harvey and Sarah Leaney and award-winning comics creator Danny Noble present an utterly unique, illustrated journey through the history, sociology and lived experience of class. What can class tell us about gentrification, precarious work, the role of elites in society, or access to education? How have thinkers explored class in the past, and how does it affect us today? How does class inform activism and change? Class: A Graphic Guide challenges simplistic and stigmatising ideas about working-class people, discusses colonialist roots of class systems, and looks at how class intersects with race, sexuality, gender, disability and age. From the publishers of the bestselling Queer: A Graphic History, this is a vibrant, enjoyable introduction for students, community workers, activists and anyone who wants to understand how class functions in their own lives.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEINTRODUCING CLASSCHAPTER 1: HISTORIES OF CLASS CHAPTER 2: THEORIES OF CLASS CHAPTER 3: LABOUR CHAPTER 4: LAND CHAPTER 5: CULTURE CHAPTER 6: EVERYDAY CHAPTER 7: THEMES AND DEBATES CHAPTER 8: THE FUTURE OF CLASS CHAPTER 9: CLASS IN OUR LIVES FURTHER RESOURCESACKNOWLEDGEMENTSCOPYRIGHT

INTRODUCING CLASS

Class can be found in many spheres of our lives, but it can be difficult to pin down. We often use other words and images to talk about class. When class is spoken about directly, it can have different meanings to different people. In this book, we will be thinking about class as:

an idea to describe inequalities in societya category based on our job or incomea group of people who are fighting for their rightsa struggle over poweran influence on our likes and dislikesa label shaping how we feel about ourselves and other people.

4This book will introduce you to different ways of understanding class. We will explore a range of theories about what class is and the broad effects it has, and we’ll encourage you to think about class in your own life.

We hope to spark your interest, highlight examples of when class has been challenged and inspire you to think about how we can break down class inequality.

Thinking about class can help us to:

see how resources are unfairly distributedquestion stereotypesnotice and challenge unfairnessfind ways to stand up for each otherreflect on how our lives are connected to others’.

5All theories of class are developed in specific historical and social contexts, so they reflect the world as seen through the authors’ eyes in that particular moment. Our own learning and research about class has been shaped by our social background. We have tried to disrupt dominant narratives of class by using critical perspectives to interrogate “classical” theories and our own ideas.

6

ROADMAP

We’ve written this book so that it can be dipped in and out of – you don’t need to read it cover to cover. The pages are grouped into these sections:

We finish by encouraging you to think about social class in your own life and suggest different ways you can take action to challenge class inequalities.

CHAPTER 1: HISTORIES OF CLASS

Concepts are not neutral – they are created in specific historical and social moments as tools to describe and explain the world. Concepts can also have an impact on the world – in organizing social life, justifying how things are and pointing to strategies for change. In the next few pages, we will consider how the concept of class has been used and how it has travelled through time and space.

8SOCIAL STRUCTURES

Early humans lived in small groups, hunting and gathering food to survive. The invention of agriculture, around 12,000 years ago, enabled the emergence of larger, more complex societies. Farming and the ability to store and transport surplus crops meant that not everyone had to be involved in the production of food. This created a division of labour within societies and the conditions for the accumulation of resources by some groups. As ancient cities emerged and communicated with each other via trade, complex social structures and hierarchies developed.

9GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

The social structures that have developed in different local areas across the world are diverse but also connected through histories of migration, trade, imperialism, slavery, colonialism, rebellion and war. We often think of hierarchies and power inequalities as inevitable or natural, but by digging under the surface we can examine the social, economic and cultural factors that have had an impact on the way society is organized.

10WHAT IS “CLASS”?

The word “class” is usually used to categorize people in relation to their economic position and social status. Depending on your perspective, these categories are used to describe and explain:

economic and social inequality between groupsthe access that different groups have to resources (like land, property, power or money)a social hierarchy related to job type, education and family background.

Although there is considerable variation in the way that the term “class” is used in everyday language and by theorists, it is almost always used to make claims about inequality.

11EXPLAINING INEQUALITY

Historian Penelope J. Corfield argues that class came into use as a concept in Britain in the 18th century. In earlier centuries, social status was relatively fixed and hereditary. With the emergence of capitalism, wealth and status could be gained via manufacture and trade. As the century progressed, increasing numbers of working people became reliant on wage labour instead of small-scale farming. Before this, there had been words to describe and explain social hierarchy, such as “ranks”, “orders” or “stations”, but the term “class” connected social position more explicitly to economics and production. 12

REBELLION

Across the world, the idea of social hierarchy as something changeable has developed against a backdrop of resistance and revolt against poverty and inequalities. Peasant uprisings, rebellions and revolutions against slavery, colonial rule, monarchy and capitalism have had an impact on social structure and the stories we tell about it.

In the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, enslaved Africans in the French colony of Saint-Domingue fought for freedom from colonialism and slavery. The revolution led to Haitian independence and the emancipation of slaves. This has been a source of inspiration for liberation movements, literature and anti-racist activism.

13THE ENLIGHTENMENT

The 18th century saw the emergence of an intellectual movement in Europe that historians have called “the Enlightenment”. Although there was diversity and debate among thinkers writing at that time, Enlightenment philosophers shared a belief that they were creating universal knowledge through science and reason.

Enlightenment philosophers were writing in the context of the expansion of European colonialism and slavery. The drive to measure the natural and social worlds, which continued into the 19th century, included the classification of people by race, class and sex. These classifications were used to justify European violence and domination across the world. The idea of natural or hereditary differences was also used to explain continuing poverty and inequality within European countries.

14Many Enlightenment thinkers put forward ideas of equality and freedom. However, some of the movement’s most famous thinkers were actively involved in the administration of colonialism and invested in slavery.

The famous thinkers associated with this time, such as Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau and Locke, were writing in Europe, and Enlightenment thinking was influential in the development of “Western” philosophy. This was central to European claims of superiority; however, historians have shown that the Enlightenment was influenced by ideas from around the world, including Confucianism (a philosophy developed in ancient China).

15SCIENTIFIC RACISM

Writer Kenan Malik argues that the biological ideas about race that became more widespread among European scientists in the 19th century were a response to the social conditions of the time. Capitalist and colonial expansion met with rebellion and resistance. Theories about “natural” differences seemed to offer a scientific justification for the persistence of hierarchies. Malik argues that mid-Victorian racial science was not just about place of birth or colour but also about social position.

16EUGENICS

In Britain, industrial capitalism had created a new urban working class, whose lives and living conditions were subject to scrutiny and control, including from social reformers who sought to “improve” people in the “lower” or “dangerous” classes.

The eugenics movement originated in late 19th-century Britain with the work of scientist Francis Galton (1822–1911); it brought together classification of the natural and social worlds, linear ideas about evolution and progress, and arguments about hereditary differences. Eugenicists argued that many human traits, including behaviour, were inherited and argued for “selective breeding” to “improve” society. The movement spread globally throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

These ideas have been used to justify violence at all levels of society, including the forced sterilization and detention of those deemed “unfit”, colonial invasion, racialized chattel slavery and genocide.

17Historian Douglas Baynton argues that in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, evolutionary theories of human progress and industrialization had a significant impact on attitudes and discrimination towards people with disabilities. This included segregation, institutionalization, prohibition of marriage and blocking people with disabilities from entering the USA as migrants.

18CLASSIFYING SEX AND SEXUALITY

Since the 19th century, the drive to categorize the population has been influential across many fields of study, including sociology, psychology, sexology, anthropology and demography. At the same time as scientists were seeking to classify social class and race, these emerging fields also set out to categorize people by sex and sexuality.

Much of this work sought to pin down “essential” differences between people and to explain social hierarchies. In some cases, the work was used to justify existing inequalities, and in others it was motivated by a drive for social reform.