Britain Today Research Articles

Medicine before the motor car

Medicine before the motor car

Immigration, education and the new caste society in Britain

We are accustomed to linking education and skill with mobility and opportunity. In recent education, employment and especially immigration policy in Britain, however, the discourse of education and skill is being used to create a segregated and inegalitarian society, in which privileges and rights are granted to a small elite while being denied to the rest of the population. Education and skill, paradoxically, which are supposed to set us free and empower us are in actuality used to divide, control and deflect our demands for justice and equality. To address problems of injustice and inequality in Britain today, for both immigrants and the native-born alike, we need to challenge the common sense acceptance of discrimination between the high and low skilled, as well as the hegemony of the language of skill itself.

‘Putting a New Lens on the World’: the Art of Theatrical Alchemy

Philip Ridley is one of the most imaginative and sensational playwrights working in Britain today. Born in 1964, he began by studying painting at St Martin's School of Art in London and wrote the highly acclaimed screenplay for The Krays (1990). He made his theatre debut at the Bush Theatre in 1991 with The Pitchfork Disney. Since then, other plays have included The Fastest Clock in the Universe (Hampstead, 1992), Ghost from a Perfect Place (Hampstead, 1994), Vincent River (Hampstead, 2000; Trafalgar Studios, 2007), and the highly controversial Mercury Fur (Paines Plough/Plymouth, 2005). This was followed by Leaves of Glass (Soho, 2007) and Piranah Heights (Soho, 2008). He's also written five plays for young people and many books for children, as well as directing two films from his own screenplays, The Reflecting Skin (1990) and The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995). Ridley continues to divide opinion: depending on your point of view, he's either Britain's sickest playwright or a singular, prolific, and amazingly visionary genius. What follows is an edited transcript of Aleks Sierz talking to Philip Ridley in one of the ‘Theatre Conversations’ series at Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, University of London, on 25 October 2007. Aleks Sierz, a Contributing Editor of NTQ, is theatre critic of Tribune and author of the seminal study In-Yer-Face Theatre (Faber, 2001).

Veiled bodies — naked racism: culture, politics and race in the Sun

The context in which the current `debate' about Muslim women and the veil is taking place, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, is that of the new orthodoxy, the `clash of civilisations'. This attempts to explain much of the world's political turmoil in terms of a clash between the (`secular modern') West and the (`traditionalist religion') Islam. The increased visibility of veiled bodies in Britain today has stirred a response that draws on long-standing orientalist oppositions and reworks them in the current climate of the `war on terror', connecting them to parallel racist discourses about `threats' to British culture. Sections of the British media have homogenised the variety of Muslim veiling practices and have presented the veil as an obstacle to meaningful `communication'; an example of Islamic `refusal' to embrace `modernity'. Veiled women are considered to be ungrateful subjects who have failed to assimilate and are deemed to threaten the `British' way of life. This paper reviews the debate over the veil in Britain in the context of British foreign policy, attacks on civil liberties, the further marginalisation of poor communities and the politicisation of British Muslims, where the veil is an increasingly political image of both difference and defiance.

Death in Britain today

Death is not a single concept. When I've been writing about funeral rituals, the mourning for Princess Diana, roadside shrines, the reporting of death in the news media, afterlife beliefs, or the contemporary interest in reincarnation, friends and acquaintances have been intrigued and have often given me, unasked, their own experiences and opinions. When I've been writing about dying or bereavement the conversation quickly turns to other things. Le Rochefoucauld once wrote, ‘Death, like the sun, cannot be looked at directly’. We need a filter. So when I've been writing about the filters—such as rituals, belief systems, or media reports—friends and acquaintances are attracted. But if they fear I'm looking directly at death, without a filter, they turn away. As would have most human beings in history and prehistory.

Women, Wartime and Autobiography: Gendering the Genre

Taking as its starting point the considerable popular interest in oral history resources in Britain today, and the wide use made of them on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in a number of institutional and more informal settings, the article briefly retraces the origins of this “history from below”, which frequently involves the use of autobiographical, or self life-writing, in order to question its significance from a gender perspective. After examining in general terms the epistemological and methodological difficulties involved in using oral sources, personal testimony and individual life-histories, the specific problems raised in using women’s narratives are discussed: their traditionally “muted” voice and fragmented sense of selfhood require that new modes of listening and interpretation be brought into play.To bring into focus the practical implications of this theoretical inquiry, the article concludes by looking more closely at how two feminist researchers have made use of women’s accounts of their lives in order to assess the extent to which their experiences during World War II brought about a modification in their status, notably in the articulation between professional and family life.

What does a National Health Service mean in the 21st century?

Mary Wollstonecraft, born in 1759, was the first English writer to set out a coherent doctrine of “native unalienable rights”. 1 Wollstonecraft M A vindication of the rights of men. In: Political writings. Oxford University Press, Oxford1994 Google Scholar “It is necessary emphatically to repeat”, she wrote, “that there are rights which men inherit at their birth, as rational creatures, who were raised above the brute creation of their improvable faculties”. For two and a half centuries, people have argued about the nature of these rights. That clash of claims is relevant to the way we think about the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain today—not only because the NHS is enjoying its 60th anniversary, but also because 2008 is the 60th anniversary of two additional and equally epoch-making ideas. The NHS: the next 60 yearsJuly 5 will mark the 60th anniversary of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Since 1948, there have been many changes to Aneurin Bevan's tax-funded system that offers health care to all free at the point of delivery—some of which have challenged the system's core values and principles. Full-Text PDF Handle with careLast Autumn, I stowed away at the UK's Primary Care Diabetes Society conference. I wanted to know more about the disease that, according to the 2002 report by Sir Derek Wanless, threatens to bankrupt the UK's National Health Service (NHS) over the next decade. It already costs the NHS more than £1 billion a year, most of which can be put down to failures in prevention and management of the illness. The incentive to find new ways to control diabetes is huge. As a social scientist among medics, I was impressed by the scale of knowledge and technology being marshalled against the disease. Full-Text PDF

Exploding history: Hayden White on disciplinization

This article explores Hayden White's documentation and interpretation of the processes of disciplinization that occurred in the field of historical studies from the nineteenth century onwards. It identifies two of White's concerns about professionalization in particular: the increasing set of repressions within the study of the past as far as radical or progressive historiographical approaches were concerned and an unhappy divorce between history and philosophy/theory. The article goes on to demonstrate how White's ideas have informed the author's research into: the idea of history in Britain, the politics of historiography and the political uses of history. The central argument pursued is that the impoverished idea and uses of history in Britain today are surely the result of the very concerns White expressed about disciplinization well over thirty years ago.

The Unconventional Beliefs of Conventional Churchgoers

A sample of 65 men and 93 women attending eight Anglican churches in Wales completed a questionnaire concerned with beliefs, attitudes and practices. Alongside conventional Christian belief, unconventional belief was assessed by eight items relating to good luck and eight items relating to bad luck. Alongside conventional Christian behaviour, unconventional behaviour was assessed by eight items relating to protection from bad luck or promotion of good luck. The data demonstrate how many churchgoers combine their conventional Christian beliefs about God with unconventional beliefs about good and bad luck. It is perhaps this special blend of conventional Christian beliefs and practices with unconventional beliefs and practices that helps to define the implicit religion of Anglicans in Britain today.

Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today

Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today

An Interview with Mark Wallinger

Mark Wallinger has recreated peace campaigner Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest for a dramatic new installation at Tate Britain. Running along the full length of the Duveen Galleries, State Britain consists of a meticulous reconstruction of over 600 weather-beaten banners, photographs, peace flags and messages from well-wishers that have been amassed by Haw over the past five years. Faithful in every detail, each section of Brian Haw’s peace camp from the makeshift tarpaulin shelter and tea-making area to the profusion of hand-painted placards and teddy bears wearing peace-slogan t-shirts has been painstakingly sourced and replicated for the display. Brian Haw began his protest against the economic sanction in Iraq in June 2001, and has remained opposite the Palace of Westminster ever since. On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the “Serious Organised Crime and Police Act” prohibiting unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometer radius of Parliament Square, the majority of Haw’s protest was removed. Taken literally, the edge of this exclusion zone bisects Tate Britain. Wallinger has marked a line on the floor of the galleries throughout the building, positioning State Britain half inside and half outside the border. In bringing a reconstruction of Haw’s protest before curtailment back into the public domain, Wallinger raises challenging questions about issues of freedom of expression and the erosion of civil liberties in Britain today.

Agendas, venues and alliances: New opportunities for the alcohol control movement in England

Alcohol issues and problems are once again being given a high political and media profile in Britain. However, the tendency of the alcohol control lobby to adopt a rationalist approach and to over rely on the persuasive powers of science may jeopardize policy initiatives. The political system of Britain today is inherently flexible and the way in which scientific knowledge and evidence is translated via the media and by political intermediaries is important. It is suggested that both cultural change and policy shifts can come about if attention is paid to both the venue and the discourse in which alcohol issues are debated, allowing new alliances to flourish.

Unknown Others: South Asian Theatre and Its Audiences in Britain Today

Unknown Others: South Asian Theatre and Its Audiences in Britain Today

The discipline that never was: current developments in music technology in higher education in Britain

This article discusses current issues around the provision of music technology in British universities. The discussion is based on the most current results from the project Betweening, funded by Palatine (Higher Education Academy). The aim of the project was to explore the educational landscape of music technology in HE and to provide an oversight of the different models used. The way a particular discipline music technology becomes established and how it evolves has as much to do with institutional and governmental politics, social constructs and pedagogical methodologies, as it does with the discipline itself. As well as an overview of the findings from quantitative studies (published in detail in Boehm 2006), this article discusses the findings from the qualitative information gathered from the Betweening project in order to provide an overview of the educational landscape of music technology in higher education in Britain today.

The ‘enemy within’? Asylum, racial violence and ‘race hate’ in Britain today

This paper examines the concept of ‘race hate’ that has emerged and flourished in British society in recent years. It will discuss a number of inter-related issues that constitute important causal factors in articulations of ‘race hate’ among sections of the white working class. Many of these issues relate to deep-seated structural factors like socio-economic marginalisation and perceived challenges to hegemonic white identity. The paper also considers a combination of developments that facilitate the particular form that ‘race hate’ takes in British society. Thus, dominant political discourses, as expressed and perpetuated within sections of the tabloid press and government policy surrounding immigration and asylum, ‘facilitate’ this form of racism in the presence of other causal factors.

Book Review: Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today

Book Review: Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today

Size at birth and its relation to muscle strength in young adult women

To assess the relationship between development in utero, assessed by birth weight, and muscle strength in young adult women as assessed by grip strength. A total of 1563 participants aged 20-40 years in the Southampton Women's Survey had their grip strength measured during pregnancy. At recruitment to the survey the women had been asked to recall their birth weight or obtain it from their parents. For 536 women born in Southampton, birth weight was obtained from hospital records. Grip strength was related to birth weight using multiple linear regression analysis, adjusting for age, height, weight and reported physical activity. Grip strength increased with age, height, weight, physical activity and birth weight. In the mutually-adjusted model, grip strength increased by 1.10 kg per kilogram of birth weight (95% CI: 0.58-1.61 kg). In women with hospital birth weight data the relationship strengthened to 1.44 kg per kilogram of birth weight (95% CI: 0.50-2.38 kg). Grip strength in women in their twenties and thirties is at or approaching its peak. The association between grip strength and birth weight was remarkably similar to findings from other studies of women at younger and older ages. This indicates that in utero development has consequences for muscle strength throughout the life course, even allowing for the increase to peak muscle strength and then its decline as a woman ages.

A House with Two Doors? Creole Nationalism and Nomadism in Multicultural London

This article focuses on the limits of liberal discourses such as multiculturalism in an increasing global world. I focus on multicultural London and juxtapose Black British writer, Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth to Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, to underline the multiple intersections between the status of coloured immigrants, their descendants, and migrant workers. The thin distinction between citizens and aliens disappears in the film that portrays their overlapping job occupations, spatial proximity, hence shedding light on the continuing significance of race in Britain today. While racism in Smith’s liberal view can be combated through claims of citizenship, the film suggests that race, class, and immigrant statuses are an integral part of a capitalist system of exploitation. This comparison reveals different conceptualisations of this diverse population, one that is creole and argues for the recognition of diverse citizens’ cultures, and another one that transcends national, gender and cultural perimeters.

Civil liberties under Labour: the wasted years

Oh, irony of ironies. David Davis thinks there is electoral advantage in moving to liberal side of Labour. He has launched a Tory campaign against identity cards and extension of pre-charge detention. So, Labour government's decade-long attempt to blindside its main opponents ends with a government more royalist than king. Two cases summarise Labour government's inherent anti-libertarianism. The government went to extraordinary, if ultimately incompetent, lengths to get legislation to remove Brian Haw from his demonstration against Iraq War outside parliament and to prosecute Maya Evans for reading names of dead a couple of hundred yards further up Whitehall. All in name of protection against terrorism. The interesting issue is how Labour got itself into position of penalising demonstrators against wars when its own senior membership had it, and it alone, was the party of law and order in Britain today. The Tories were lambasted for forgetting order part. Labour wanted action: conviction of more offenders, a crackdown on petty crimes, more gun control and fast-track punishment for persistent young offenders. The manifesto gave prominence to Blairite mantra of 'tough on crime, tough on causes of crime'. A major Labour priority was to wrest criminal justice from Tories and make it a Labour issue. Accordingly, Home Office became a prime source of Mr Blair's concern. And how active he has been. Remember centrepiece legislation of his period in office: Criminal Justice Act 2003. It was so deliriously long 339 sections, 38 schedules. No chance of parliament stopping that or even scrutinising much of it. How it showed a government and a Home Office at height of their powers six years into office and still three years from any deflating declaration of 'not fit for

Book Review: Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today

Book Review: Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today