Working Classes

Eighteenth-century Britain saw the emergence of a new poetic genre, the “work” poem which took various forms of labor as its subject and was often written by laborers themselves. Several of these working class poets found their lives transformed due to the success of their verse (Stephen Duck most famously), but most faded into literary obscurity. However, a substantial body of “work” poems was produced by a diverse group of poets throughout the century, each manifesting divergent concerns and attitudes about the experience of work. This chapter assesses the formal connections uniting this poetic genre, particularly the frequent use of such literary devices as ironic distancing, litotes, and mock-georgic description. Instead of solely classifying “work” poems on the basis of their subject matter, this chapter demonstrates that such poetry (indeed the genre itself) lends itself to sophisticated literary techniques often associated with other poetic genres. In this fashion the full measure of eighteenth-century working class poetry can be evaluated more fairly, particularly by analyzing the formation of a new genre designed expressly by the poets themselves. The chapter ultimately seeks to demonstrate the connectedness, rather than the alienation, of working class poetry to the eighteenth-century British poetic tradition.

Un costo laboral que se calcula en derechos conquistados con lucha y organización. Una planta industrial que se conoce como ícono del sindicalismo combativo y de izquierda. Un día de la bandera que pretende izar la revancha burguesa contra el tupé de alzar la vista. Un grupo de obreros y particularmente obreras que resisten en sus puestos de trabajo. Un conflicto que concentra las miradas. Esta nota es sobre PepsiCo.

Résumé

Au même titre que la déstructuration du monde ouvrier et que la crise du militantisme, la présence croissante de surdiplômé(e)s dans les catégories populaires ne contribue-t-elle pas au déclin du sentiment d’appartenance de classe ? À partir d’une enquête ethnographique sur les facteurs, salariés d’exécution de la Poste, on montre que la coexistence dans un même métier d’individus inégalement scolarisés et d’origine sociale différente exacerbe les sentiments de différence et d’appartenance générationnelle et rend impossibles non seulement l’identification collective à une même position sociale mais aussi la conscience d’occuper une position professionnelle commune. Refusant de s’identifier aux classes populaires qu’ils côtoient dans leur travail quotidien, les déclassé(e)s oscillent de façon durable et contradictoire entre une appartenance à la génération des études longues et une appartenance en pointillés au métier de facteur.

Abstract

Over-educated mail carriers :Well-educated but déclassé

As much as the restructuring of the working world and the crisis of political activism, one might see the presence of over-educated workers as a factor accounting for the decline of class identities. This ethnographic study of French mail carriers shows the presence in the same job of individuals with different educational and social backgrounds to be a factor exacerbating differences of identity and generation. This mixture makes it impossible not only for a shared sense of social identity to emerge but even a shared workplace identity. Refusing to identify as part of the working class, these over-educated mail carriers constantly vacillate between an identity as part of a well-educated generation and a very partial one of mail carrier.

Does capitalism generate prosperity and well-being in an atmosphere of freedom, as its defenders claim, or is it an unjust system in which workers are exploited for the benefit of a capital-owning minority, as its critics assert? Does capitalism lead inexorably to greater inequality, or does it have mechanisms that in the long run reduce inequalities? Do capitalist markets regulate themselves and manage to overcome the difficulties and turbulences generated by their functioning, or, on the contrary, do they lead to increasingly serious crises which, in one way or another, will lead to their collapse or their replacement by another social system? Beyond these dichotomies, which sketch a black and white world, this book explores the diversity of capitalisms, with all their colors, shades and nuances. Instead of repeating the discussion about whether capitalism is good or bad, it is about changing the questions: How diverse can capitalism be? Why do capitalisms differ? What factors provoke their transformations? What are the scope and limits of this form of economic and social organization? These and other questions are the
questions animate this work, which takes as its starting point a polemic thesis: other capitalisms are possible.

Resumo: O presente artigo pretende analisar os meandros da implementação de bibliotecas em empresas automotivas no ABC Paulista. Como recorte metodológico a Volkswagen do Brasil foi escolhido para ser analisado. Ao discutir e analisar a oferta aos trabalhadores de livros de um acervo específico dentro da fábrica, serão articuladas as possíveis intenções dos gestores, a apropriação da prática da leitura da leitura pelos trabalhadores e os possíveis resultados implicados neste projeto.

In India, many women from former untouchable caste groups (Dalits) are domestic workers. Despite attempts at seeking formal, legal recognition, they continue to be seen by the state as part of a broad, ambiguous category of “informal workers” whose work is stigmatized and not legislated for. In this essay, I suggest that the discourses and practices of a neighborhood-level Dalit domestic workers’ union in Mumbai reconceptualize domestic work as “formal” work.The workers assert themselves as formal workers (kamgaar) owing to their long histories of work in specific neighborhoods, relationships of trust with employers, and their ability to negotiate long-standing employment with them. Though domestic work does not align with the state’s definition of formal work (for example, through the presence of written contracts), for the workers, it was their own qualities, origins, social positions, and relationships that defined the formality of work rather than the other way around. Centering respect and dignity in their own work, their union also facilitated the articulation of the caste and gender-based prejudices that have not only kept domestic workers outside the ambit of formal recognition but also have brought about routine encounters with violence and harassment for Dalit women in the local neighborhood.

The recent electoral tide of the Far Right in Europe and the US has revived the old debate on working-class susceptibility to nationalism and exclusivism. Political analysts and mass media invoked an empirical, but theoretically uninformed concept of class, open to misuses in the framework of hegemonic discursive practices that nurture stereotypes and simplistic interpretations of class manifestations. The present paper lays out a cultural materialist research agenda for the study of the nexus between class and far right vote from a multidisciplinary and multi-scale perspective (local, national and transnational level of analysis). The aim is to provide a synthetic view that will enable a critical reformulation of the argument of the inherent working-class backwardness with the aspiration of contributing to a better understanding of its conditionality.

Time and low-income families challenged by vulnerability

Based on a study of low-income families, this article documents the connections between the structuring of the families’ time and the vulnerability of their circumstances. The on-going lack of economic resources traps them in a state of urgency. Examining the relationship between paid work and family time, the article describes the a-rhythmic time horizon resulting from being out of the labour market and the unsynchronised one generated by flexible and precarious jobs with unsocial hours. These are at variance with the schedules of institutions, and they have consequences for family life and socialisation of children, with respect to schooling and preventive health practices.

Auteurs : Mathias Millet et Daniel Thin
Titre : Le temps des familles populaires à l’épreuve de la précarité
Revue : Lien social et Politiques, Numéro 54, automne 2005, p. 153-162
URI : http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/012867ar
DOI : 10.7202/012867ar


Appuyé sur l’étude de familles populaires, cet article montre les liens qui existent entre structures temporelles des familles et conditions d’existence précaires. Il met en évidence les effets d’enfermement temporel dans l’urgence que provoque l’absence durable de ressources économiques. Établissant une relation entre travail salarié et temps des familles, l’article décrit la temporalité arythmique qui résulte des situations de désaffiliation salariale, ou encore la temporalité désynchronisée engendrée par l’occupation d’emplois précaires flexibles et à contretemps. Il montre ainsi les écarts de ces temporalités sociales vis-à-vis des formes temporelles institutionnelles, et expose les conséquences temporelles de la précarité pour les pratiques des familles et la socialisation des enfants, du point de vue des apprentissages scolaires et des pratiques de prévention en matière de santé.

Edited by Erika Polson, Lynn Schofield Clark, and Radhika Gajjala, this companion, brings together scholars working at the intersection of media and class, with a focus on how understandings of class are changing in contemporary global media contexts.

From the memes of and about working-class supporters of billionaire "populists", to well-publicized and critiqued philanthropic efforts to bring communication technologies into developing country contexts, to the behind-the-scenes work of migrant tech workers, class is undergoing change both in and through media. Diverse and thoughtfully curated contributions unpack how media industries, digital technologies, everyday media practices—and media studies itself—feed into and comment upon broader, interdisciplinary discussions. They cover a wide range of topics, such as economic inequality, workplace stratification, the sharing economy, democracy and journalism, globalization, and mobility/migration.

Outward-looking, intersectional, and highly contemporary, The Routledge Companion to Media and Class is a must-read for students and researchers interested in the intersections between media, class, sociology, technology, and a changing world.

Sungur Savran, The great challenge: Winning the working class back from ideological irredentism

Tamás Krausz, An updated, second edition of the Horthy regime in Hungary

Ewa Groszewska, The new Polish government: Anti-neoliberal but anti-left profile first

Savas Michael-Matsas, The French Spring and the crisis in Europe

Balkan Socialist Center “Christian Rakovsky” and RedMed, Against austerity, fascism, war, environmental catastrophe, and barbarism, fight for international socialism!

Burak Gürel , Islamism: A comparative-historical overview

Mustafa Kemal Coşkun, Islamism: A comparative-historical overview The class bases of political articulation: Islamism in Turkey

Özgür Öztürk, Economic background of the collapse of the Soviet Union

"crackle[s] with insight and revealing detail" (Jakub Benes on H-nationalism)

"a major contribution to the study of nationalism" (Carl Strikwerda in American Historical Review)

"This well-written, innovative, and engaging study pushes us to reorient our understanding not only of language and national identity in Belgium, but also how to go about studying them. Students unfamiliar with Belgian history will have no problem jumping right into this book, for Van Ginderachter concisely introduces and contextualizes all key issues. One could even say that it serves as a kind of primer on modern Belgian history. It will be useful not only to readers interested in Belgian history, but also to those studying nationalism, language, ethnicity, and labor movements in modern European history." (Matthew G. Stanard in Journal of Social History)

"The relationships of workers and the modern labor movement to social categories such as nationality, ethnicity, class, and religion are complex and poorly understood, usually treated separately from everyday experiences. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including a unique set of 'proletarian tweets,' this superb book both illuminates the Belgian case and provides a model for future research." (Advance praise by John Breuilly, LSE)

Probably the most important apolitical, non-physical education organization in interwar Ostravsko was the Sdružení českých bezvěrců [Association of Czech Atheists] (1919) or Sdružení sociálnědemokratických bezvěrců [Association of Social Democratic Atheists] (1919), from 1933 the Unie socialistických svobodných myslitelů [Union of Free Socialist Thinkers], which was the largest atheist organization in the region and, together with its press organ Volné slovo [The Free Word], was the main ideological rival to the Catholic Church. The development of atheism was facilitated by urbanization, anti-clerical propaganda from the socialist press, the experiences of the war, the antiCatholic ideology of the Czechoslovak state and generations’ experiences of religion failing to reflect the social realities of industrial Ostravsko. The association organised lectures and Sunday talks on natural morality, but also demonstrations (in 1925 for freedom of conscience, in 1935 for freedom of education, the 1936 Ferrer celebrations). In 1938 the Union transformed into the Osvětový svaz [Educational Union], which ended in 1940. Postwar attempts to revitalize the organization never recaptured the significance of the interwar atheist movement.

When in a person’s life does upward social mobility begin? We know from sociological research that people experience the trials and triumphs of mobility at life-stages of adaptation to new contexts, such as school, university, and work. But this chapter is about looking further back. It considers twenty-nine life-narratives of upwardly mobile Australians, demonstrating how the origins of social mobility, and its disruptions, emerge within early experiences of working-class family life. This points to the often overlooked heterogeneous nature of working-class families, and to the early inceptions of a cleft, or divided habitus. The interviewees offered narratives of appreciation and symbolic inheritance from their families, but they also spoke of the darker side of mobility; of emotional distancing and relational separation, of painful conflict, and of ambivalence about themselves and their families. The discussion in this chapter necessarily oscillates between the hopeful benefits and the painful costs of mobility. These are people who simultaneously win and lose, and whose narratives challenge expedient political discourses on increasing social mobility for addressing inequality (see Introduction chapter), and ask that we take into account the ‘cruelty of social mobility’ (Chapter 11).

Les significations attribuées au mot « communiste » sont plus diverses que jamais. Il renvoie à une histoire tragique pour les peuples et les communistes eux-mêmes, et est même associé, dans le cas de la Chine, à un acteur central de la mondialisation capitaliste. Mais il reste aussi, pour beaucoup de celles et ceux qui le revendiquent, lié à l’idée d’une alternative au capitalisme, visant à l’égalité sociale et à l’instauration d’un pouvoir politique effectivement exercé par le plus grand
nombre, non monopolisé par les élites sociales.
Au-delà de ceux qui l’ont pensé ou dirigé et dont on a retenu les noms, le Parti communiste français est aussi le fruit de l’engagement de nombreux syndicalistes, militants associatifs, femmes se revendiquant ou non du féminisme ou encore travailleurs immigrés investis dans les luttes anticoloniales. Cette histoire, qui commence au congrès de Tours en 1920 et traverse un siècle en France, est aussi la leur.

Tytułowa figura robotnika i związane z nią performanse pamięci przedstawione są z punktu widzenia kulturoznawstwa, filozofii, historii sztuki, teatrologii i muzykologii. Autorki i autorzy przyglądają się rzeczywistości fabryki i ulicy jako miejscom kształtowania się tożsamości proletariatu przemysłowego, figurom robotnicy i robotnika w projektach awangardy teatralnej i artystycznej. Analizują przy tym wielostronne praktyki kulturowe: od strajków i demonstracji przez film awangardowy, teatr polityczny, scenę kabaretową i socrealistyczne przedsięwzięcia kulturalne po projekty kuchni modernistycznej, sport robotniczy i sztukę proletariacki.

W ten sposób powstaje wielostronna, a zarazem fragmentaryczna i rozproszona perspektywa, która pozwala spod dokumentów, narracji i wizualnych przedstawień wyjrzeć wciąż problematycznej i nie dość rozpoznanej w kulturze polskiej figurze robotnika. Zamieszczone w tomie teksty same stają się swoistymi performansami pamięci, w ramach których autorzy starają się odtworzyć historię, której podstawowym medium pozostają ciało i gesty – uchwycone we fragmentarycznych relacjach, migawkowych obrazach, pojedynczych scenach.

A meta-analysis of 35 studies found that social class (socioeconomic status) is related to social integration among students in higher education: Working-class students are less integrated than middle-class students. This relation generalized across students’ gender and year of study, as well as type of social class measure (parental education and parental income). However, type of social integration measure was a significant moderator. In particular, the social subscale of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire obtained the largest effect (r = .18, p < .001). Significant effects were also found using measures of the sense of belonging and participation in formal and informal social activities. Future research in this area should use multidimensional measures of social integration and investigate potential mediators of the social class-social integration relation.

Pandemi ortamının en önemli getirilerinden ve sorunlarından biri “eve iş getirmek” ifadesiyle özetlenebilir. Başka bir anlatımla, iş mekanının göçebeleşmesi gibi bir olguyla yüz yüzeyiz. Bu metin söz konusu meseleyi ve değişen iş yaşamını tartışıyor. Şimdilerde kapitalist çalışma düzeninin en çarpıcı kırılma noktalarından birine tanıklık ediyoruz.

Ancien prof de lycée dans le « 9-3 » devenu sociologue, Fabien Truong a pendant dix ans – des émeutes de 2005 aux attentats de janvier 2015 – suivi et accompagné une vingtaine d’anciens élèves, du bac jusqu’à la fi n de leurs études. Tour à tour prof, enquêteur, témoin, conseiller et confi dent, il dresse ici le portrait tout en finesse d’une certaine jeunesse française, celle des banlieues populaires issues de l’immigration.
Loin des clichés médiatiques, du fatalisme politique ambiant et des prophéties catastrophistes de la « désintégration sociale », ce livre observe la dilution quotidienne de cette jeunesse dans la société française. De la fac aux grandes écoles, en passant par les cycles plus courts, ces jeunes incarnent la face cachée d’une passion nationale : sortir de sa condition par l’école. Confrontés au stigmate des origines, à l’impératif de rentabilité assigné aux études longues et à la précarité massive, ils mènent un combat ordinaire pour gagner l’estime de soi et apprendre à naviguer entre les multiples frontières du monde social.
En offrant une véritable plongée dans l’intimité de ces jeunes étudiants en quête d’échappée, ce livre peut se lire aussi comme un récit initiatique, déroulant dans le temps long leurs rêves d’ascension sociale, leurs questionnements identitaires, les peines et les joies de l’apprentissage intellectuel, leur rapport à la religion ou leurs histoires d’amour. Car, dans ces territoires de la République, rien n’est jamais gagné ni perdu d’avance.