Face Of Britain Research Articles

A Psychological Study of Social Identity in Zadie Smith’s Swing Time

The search for identity is the central theme to numerous literary works, often following the protagonist or another protagonist. This research analyzes the protagonist's growth throughout Swing Time by Zadie Smith, which, like the majority of published psychological works, is motivated by a search for the individual's "authentic self." It's only appropriate that the protagonist of this author's fifth novel, is experiencing adolescence. The British author, Zadie Smith, uses her highly regarded novel Swing Time to probe questions of black people's racial identity and their connections to people of other races. This study also investigates the challenges faced by people of color in the entertainment industry, among critics, and in the pursuit of social and economic mobility. A strong sense of community is difficult for immigrant groups to establish. The difficulties that immigrant communities in contemporary Britain face in assimilating to mainstream culture are depicted in nuanced detail in Zadie Smith's Swing Time. The researcher concludes that the narrator's influence from family and her own lack of personal understanding explain her inability to adopt a tolerant and reasonable attitude when confronted with a multicultural society. Smith, who is a diasporic person, uses the protagonist's search for identity to highlight the importance of having a global perspective.

Piling on the pressure: Crime and stress in British farming

Farmers in Britain face a range of stressors – events that negatively affect wellbeing – that impact on their ability to manage their business successfully. Extant research has identified stressors such as weather, finance, regulation, staffing and time pressures. However, no research has examined how agricultural crime affects the mental health of farmers. This article is the first to explore whether agricultural crime should be considered as a farmer stressor, and how this compares to the impact of other, more widely acknowledged farmer stressors on the day-to-day running of a farm in Britain. An online survey was employed to reach farmers across Britain to obtain quantitative data, but also qualitative data relating to stressors. Results in this first tranche of data indicate that agricultural crime has a clear place in the list of farmer stressors, with only weather, finance and time pressures being reported more often as a top three stressor by participants. The article concludes that there is a clear research gap regarding crime as a farmer stressor. It is argued that the findings of this research support the need for a wider discussion among key stakeholders to examine how agricultural crime is impacting upon the viability of British farms, and to ensure that agricultural crime is considered as a key farmer stressor so that its effects can be better addressed alongside other stressors.

Offline: Sex and power during a pandemic

“At the height of the pandemic, women were underrepresented across the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and related subgroups advising cabinet on the coronavirus response.” This conclusion comes from the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality and women's rights at work, in its latest report, Sex and Power 2022. It's impossible to disagree—at least in the UK. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, together with Jonathan Van-Tam and Neil Ferguson, became the very masculine face of Britain's response. The Fawcett Society continues: “It is unsurprising, given the membership of the advisory boards early in the pandemic, that male voices dominated media coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.” They recommend that organisations, such as SAGE, must work harder to achieve equal representation for women, and especially for women of colour. These findings are important and deserve attention. But the reality may also be more complex than the Fawcett Society's report suggests. Indeed, I think a case could be made that COVID-19 was a breakthrough moment for women in the public sphere of science and public health. Kate Bingham was responsible for the UK's vaccine programme. She chaired the UK Vaccine Taskforce and secured millions of doses of multiple vaccines, guaranteeing Britain's successful immunisation roll-out. As Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, June Raine ensured that early findings from vaccine trials were translated into rapid approvals for use. Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green led research to devise one of the world's most successful vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. Their book, Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus, became an international bestseller. Beyond vaccines, the UK has been a global leader in SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing. That success owes everything to Sharon Peacock, who heads the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium. Also consider: Anne Johnson, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, which made important contributions to science advice to government; Yvonne Doyle, who, as Director of Health Protection, steered the UK's public health response; Nikki Kanani, Medical Director of Primary Care at NHS England, who supported general practice during the worst pressures of the pandemic; Linda Bauld, Chief Social Policy Adviser to the Scottish Government and prolific media commentator; and Jenny Harries, promoted from Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England to Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency. Angela McLean, Theresa Marteau, and Susan Michie have all had major roles in shaping the work of SAGE. Michie, in particular, has been a prominent public voice, holding the government accountable for its often mistimed decisions. Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, has been a notable public commentator in the pandemic as well as being an adviser to the Scottish Government. Christina Pagel has been a trenchant analyst and critic on Independent SAGE. Zubaida Haque, also a member of Indie SAGE, has drawn attention to the issue of racial inequalities during the pandemic. Nisreen Alwan has been a powerful advocate for taking long COVID more seriously. Trish Greenhalgh has been a go-to voice for evidence-informed public health practice. Clare Gerada, Laura Spinney, and Anjana Ahuja have all been incisive commentators in national media. And Kathryn de Prudhoe and Jo Goodman co-launched the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. Internationally, Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf chaired the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Soumya Swaminathan and Maria Van Kerkhove have been the public face of WHO. Özlem Türeci co-leads BioNTech, which developed the first mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Angelique Coetzee provided more reliable evidence about the omicron variant than most mathematical modellers. The Fawcett Society's report rightly calls for urgent action to achieve gender equity in science policy making. Yet it would be an error not to acknowledge and honour the vital contributions that women have made during the pandemic. The UK's experience may not be generalisable to other countries. But, in Britain, COVID-19 has seen a step change in recognition for women in science and science policy. The challenge now is surely to build on that success, beginning in schools and extending to the furthest reaches of government, universities, and the media.

Face of Britain

ABSTRACT Despite the various restrictions brought about by the Covid pandemic, Southampton City Art Gallery staged a year-long exhibition, ‘Face of Britain’ (September 2020–September 2021), curated by the artist Nahem Shoa. The exhibition brought together a number of outstanding portraits held by (or on loan to) the Gallery, of artists who painted British individuals from the seventeenth century to the present day. Importantly, however, these ‘canonical’ works from established collections were shown in confluence with a selection of Shoa’s own striking oil paintings of black sitters. In asking ‘head-to-head’ how diverse we are, it was a timely show, not least given the context of heightened debates of decolonisation, a growing acknowledgement of social inequities (further exposed by the Covid pandemic) and the newly emerging reality of a post-Brexit Britain. In this essay, Shoa offers a contextual account of the exhibition. It draws back to his development as an artist of mixed race in the early 1990s, and offers commentary on his major undertaking ‘Giant Heads’, as a means to establish just what it has meant to end up being the curator of a show entitled ‘Face of Britain’. Nahem Shoa, Daniel Sulleiman (2008) oil on canvas, 60.8 × 50.7 cm.

How Diasporic?: Psychogeographies of the New Britain in (Post-)Millennial British Theatre

Around the millennial years it was a priority for both the British Government and the Media to promote the changing, multicultural face of Britain. Contemporary British drama and its critics have also been largely preoccupied by the same agenda. How far are such spectacular representations of “new nationhood” indicative of actual, fundamental changes in the way Britishness is conceived today? How much of these aspirations has been fulfilled?

Textual Transformations in Contemporary Black Writing in Britain

While the first wave of Caribbean immigrant writers brilliantly explored race-related issues, black Britons like Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith and Caryl Phillips, among others, have sought to depart from earlier fiction, motivated in their project by the changing white face of Britain. In this article, I would like to argue that cultural change in Britain has deeply influenced literary production and has, consequently, laid the ground for a series of textual transformations. To capture instances of creative excess in contemporary black writing in Britain, I will bring under examination Caryl Phillips’s (2009) novel In the Falling Snow . My intention is to show to what extent Phillips’s work surpasses the ‘noose of race’ and already-familiar representations of multicultural Britain to celebrate a ‘post-racial’ society.

Sir George Stapledon and the Cahn Hill Improvement Scheme: A Dream Turned Reality

AbstractR. G. Stapledon was one of the most profound of twentieth-century thinkers on rural and landscape issues. Scientist, philosopher and teacher, he was an unconventional figure who, with a dedicated team of loyal colleagues, established the basic biology and breeding systems of the Graminae at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in the 1920s and 1930s. They subsequently bred a range of grass and clover varieties which were to transform grazing lands throughout the British Empire. To Stapledon the grasslands of an island nation were of vital strategic importance and if Britain were to prepare for a future war, her grasslands would require dramatic improvement if they were to provide a reserve of fertility. In proposing and implementing a vast scheme of renovation of the uplands of Wales, against the fervent opposition of the economists, as a means of both improving agricultural output and stemming the haemorrhage of depopulation, he demonstrated the practical feasibility of land improvement. In so doing he provided a template for the massively subsidised post-war programme of land improvement which was so dramatically to change the face of Britain. This article describes the evolution and conduct of the Cahn Hill Improvement Scheme which was not only one of the most ambitious outdoor ‘experiments’ of the last century, but in a sense, a metaphor for nation-building itself.

Definitions of love in a sample of British women: An empirical study using Q methodology

Social psychological research has increasingly acknowledged that any pretensions to a singular theory of love should be replaced with a concern about its affirmation and what people actually say and do in love's name. Lee's (1977) love styles research and Sternberg's (1995) theory of love as a story are prime examples. Despite traditional definitions of love in western cultures being dominated by feminine images and tales of gender difference, however, the personal definitions and experiences of women have received comparatively little empirical attention, particularly in recent years and despite some well-documented changes in their cultural circumstances. This study remedies that situation through presentation of a Q methodological study in which a convenience sample of 59 British women were asked to Q sort 54 single-word descriptors of love to define love as they had experienced it. Factor analysis of the resulting Q sorts revealed six distinct definitions of love, interpreted as 'attraction, passion & romance', 'unconditional love', 'sex & fun', 'friendship & spirituality', 'a permanent commitment', and 'separate people, separate lives'. The six definitions are then discussed in terms of their allegiance to traditionally feminine and/or masculine values and as a means of highlighting the changing face of Britain's relational culture.

Comment: If you ask me

As the Olympics show the more human face of Britain's armed forces, Nick Everard explains how and why ex-military personnel have much to offer the engineering industry.

The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire , 1713-1763 (review)

Reviewed by: The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713-1763 Jesús F. de la Teja The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713-1763. By Paul W. Mapp. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Pp. 480. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. ISBN 9780807833957, $49.95 cloth.) At the end of the French and Indian War (or Seven Years' War), Britain stood as the only imperial power east of the Mississippi River while Spain remained the only imperial power west of the great river—the notional empire of the Comanches notwithstanding. In this sprawling retelling of how Spain and Britain wound up as the only Europeans standing and how France fell victim to its colonial ambitions, Paul Mapp takes us not only to the contested regions of western North America but to the Falklands in the South Atlantic and the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific and to Siberia and China as well. His argument is that as long as historians remain focused on the geographic space of North America they cannot fully understand the role of the largely unexplored part of the continent on imperial decision making in London, Paris, and Madrid. In the end, he concludes, the French became disenchanted with the potential of western North America to provide access to Spanish sources of wealth in the years leading up to the war while the British reached the same state in its aftermath. Spain, of course, had no choice in the matter; its acceptance of trans-Mississippi Louisiana at the end of 1762 was a purely defensive move in the face of Britain's sweeping victories to the north and east. Much of what The Elusive West tells us, as the author readily admits at times, is already part of the standard historiography. The book's innovation consists in broadening the context to make French, British, and Spanish diplomacy with regard to western North America more understandable, if not always more reasonable. A substantial portion of the book is consequently devoted to explaining how the judgments of European policy makers were informed by an imperfect understanding of the geographical relationship of western North America to more valuable places such as Mexican and Peruvian silver-mining regions and potential Pacific trade routes. Developments and contrasts in the collection and processing of geographic information among the imperial powers in North America, [End Page 80] and even in Asia, receive considerable attention. A particularly insightful section delves into how the influence of Locke and Newton (replacing Descartes) on French thinking in the mid-eighteenth century led to Paris policy makers wanting empirical evidence for the fanciful claims of earlier geographers regarding access from the interior of North America to the Pacific Coast and to Spanish territories. To the degree that the facts did not support them, "The old marvels were dropping out of written evidence of foreign office deliberations" (382). Readers of this journal will be most familiar with the latter part of the book, where matters come to a boil in the decade of the 1750s, although they are bound to be disappointed with the minor role that Mapp assigns to Texas. Mapp does a very good job of explaining the strategic thinking of British, French, and Spanish statesmen based on short- and long-term objectives. However, although some of the major Spanish-French encounters in Texas are briefly discussed—the French trader Blancpain's capture on the lower Trinity River, the Norteño attack on Mission San Sabá—his arguments are mostly built around French encounters with New Mexico. Curiously, the founding of Texas in response to French activities in trans-Mississippi Louisiana is missing from Mapp's narrative. The Elusive West is an impressively well-researched and thoughtful work, even when its narrative rambles so far afield from the plains and mountains of western North America that it becomes difficult for the reader to see all the connections. The book will amply reward those patient enough to stick with it to the end. Jesús F. de la Teja Texas State University-San Marcos Copyright © 2012 The Texas State Historical Association

Genetic Indigenisation in ‘The People of the British Isles’

In 2007, Channel 4 screened Face of Britain, a documentary about the genetic mapping of Britain. Face of Britain promised to reveal ‘who we really are’ by tracing genetic links back to ancient Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. This article situates Face of Britain within the wider racial and national politics that it is invariably caught up in, and examines how ‘race’ and racial thinking are reconfigured in ways that are both ‘old’ and ‘new’. Face of Britain constitutes an interesting case study to examine how ideas of indigeneity are produced and naturalised in scientific discourses and practices. Here, indigeneity is mobilised through three sub-narratives: the ‘vanishing indigene’; the promise of facial recognition; and DNA and national relatedness. The analysis reveals how some people of the British Isles are naturalised as indigenous by virtue of their ancestral presence in this land through a combination of genetic and photographic technologies. In short, blood and soil are intertwined, with genes as mediators between ancestors and contemporary inhabitants of Britain. Furthermore, the invisible genetic connection is made visible through the creation of ‘average faces of Britain’, which is considered here as a contemporary version of physiognomy. In conclusion, Face of Britain testifies to the reconfiguration of ‘racial thinking’ in contemporary science, through what ultimately amounts to the genetic indigenisation of white Britons. Consequently, this study lends itself to racialised politics of land claims that resonate with, but are different from, indigenous politics in other contexts, namely with regards to the relationship to whiteness.

The Irish health disadvantage in England: contribution of structure and identity components of Irish ethnicity

Background. Irish people living in Britain face a significant health disadvantage when compared to the white British host population. Objectives. Using recent survey data, determine whether there is an ‘Irish health disadvantage’ independent of socio-economic factors and explore whether there is an Irish ethnic identity effect which operates on health. Design. Data from the Census 2001 Individual Licensed SARs was analysed using binary logistic regression to study the relationship between the self-reported Irish ethnicity measure (which is presumed to reflect self-identification with Irish culture and community), considering country of birth subgroups, and the self-reported health measures of general health and limiting long-term illness. The analysis was adjusted for key demographic and socio-economic factors. Results. When compared to the white British reference population, the self-reported ‘white Irish’ population overall, the Irish born in Northern Ireland, and UK-born Irish, show a significantly increased risk of both self-reported poor general health and limiting long-term illness. The increased risk of poor health of the Irish born in the Republic of Ireland is greatly diminished after the socio-economic adjustments, and only statistically significant in the case of general health. Finally, the Irish born in Northern Ireland who self-report as Irish are significantly more likely than those who self-report as British to report poor general health, which may suggest an Irish ethnic identity effect. Conclusions. The findings demonstrate a persistent ethnic health disadvantage for first generation and UK-born Irish people living in England with respect to self-reported general health and limiting long-term illness, which cannot be fully explained by demographic and key socio-economic factors. Aspects of ethnicity related to both structure and identity may affect Irish self-reported health.

The under-used resource of historical research

Nurse educationalists in Britain face the charge that the system is no longer producing nurses who are competent when they qualify. Research into these issues led to an historical approach, using life story and documentary analysis, to understanding how nurses from the 1940s and 1950s talked about nursing. This article by Janet Hargreaves considers the value of such an approach and argues that an understanding of how nursing was crafted in the past illuminates the present.

Wilting plants [automobile industry

Car plants in Britain face an uncertain future, with the potential for more large-scale job losses. The conclusion comes in the report "Success and Failure in the UK Car Manufacturing Industry" published in March 2007 by MPs on the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee. The report is the result of an inquiry launched by the MPs in the wake of the Ryton and MG Rover announcements that they factories are going to close down. The report concludes that Ryton and Ellesmere Port shared common factors that led to job losses. But, as well as ageing and inflexible plants, supply chain problems and labour costs, the committee identifies an underlying issue for UK car-making - one that will not come as any surprise to the industry - the excess production capacity in areas of the world (including western Europe) where demand is stagnant or falling. Other varied and complex bases for the conclusion are described.

Only connect: can the ulema address the crisis in the transmission of Islam to a new generation of South Asians in Britain?

This article identifies the challenges the ulema (community of Muslim scholars) in Britain face if they are to connect with British Muslims from South Asian backgrounds, especially two groups of British Pakistanis; the disaffected, inner-city ‘rude boys’, and students on campus attracted to more radical groups. The diversity of expressions of Islam available on the Internet and in many large cities indicates the extent to which the ulema are but one centre of authority in a proliferating, polycentric, religious reality. Furthermore, British South Asians can now access Islamic groups with roots outside South Asia, whether Wahhabi/Salafi (early generations) traditions funded by Saudi petrol dollars or Hizb at-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), a movement with origins in Palestine. It is clear that the search for relevant expressions of Islam cannot be divorced from ‘identity politics’. Thus, this article explores the dynamics of the latter and its interplay with Islam. Finally, four exceptional British-based ulema are depicted that, in different ways, are seeking to connect. Their different contexts and constituencies are considered. Cumulatively, they indicate both the vitality of their traditions, the pragmatism characteristic of much of their developing interaction with wider society, and the potential and pitfalls of such an engagement.

New Labour's pasts: the Labour Party and its discontents

Where other books are either highly partisan dismissals or appreciations of the Third Way, or dull sociological accounts, this book gets behind the cliches in order to show just what is left of Labour party ideology and what the future may hold.New Labour has changed the face of Britain. Culture, class, education, health, the arts, leisure, the economy have all seen seismic shifts since the 1997 election that raised Blair to power. The Labour that rules has distanced itself from the failed Labour of the 70s and 80s, but the core remains. Labour remains gripped by its own past - unable and unwilling to shed its ties to the old Labour party, but determined to avoid the mistakes of which lead to four electoral defeats between 1979 and 1992. Cronin covers the full history of the party from its post war triumph through decades of shambolic leadership against ruthless and organised opposition to the resurgent New Labour of the 90s that finally took Britain into the new millennium.

David Ben-Gurion's Zionist foreign policy, 1938–48: the democratic factor

In the face of Britain's retreat – at a time when the situation of European Jewry had disastrously deteriorated – from its international commitment to help establish in Eretz Israel (Palestine) a national home for the Jewish people, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv and the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel, did not succumb to despair and violence. Instead, he adopted a predominantly political-diplomatic course, curved democratically to activate for the Zionist cause American Jewry and the American public in general. This strategy, basically derived from the democratic tradition of the Zionist movement and the Yishuv, vindicated in the establishment of the State of Israel, in part of Eretz Israel, against heavy odds and with the recognition of the United States and American Jewry. Thus, the Zionist drive for an American alignment employed democracy as a means to achieve Jewish independence, and also worked further to form the state itself as quintessentially democratic.

'The shell of a prosperous age': history, landscape and the modern in Paul Rotha's The Face of Britain (1935).

'The shell of a prosperous age': history, landscape and the modern in Paul Rotha's The Face of Britain (1935).

The British Pub Within the Tourism Product

The British pub is part of the face of Britain presented to the world and the theme running through this article is to set British pubs within the context of heritage tourism. The thesis contained within this article is to focus on one of the elements of community life, the pub, in order to examine its characteristics and value within the wider spectrum of visitor attractions set within the context of the tourism industry. The article reviews the literature in ascertaining whether the British pub is a tourist attraction for overseas visitors, and why. Whilst the pub has an important role in domestic tourism, the main emphasis of this article is on the national factors that predetermine its survival and the nature of its appeal to visitors from abroad.

Health costs of social injustice

The benefits of increasing technological power for the mass of the population, in terms of higher living standards, greater freedom, and better health, have never been automatic. Reforming energy and social innovation have always been necessary for people to reap the full benefit of economic and scientific advances. The significance of last month's report by the Commission on Social Justice needs to be understood within this history of reform.1,2 One hundred and sixty years ago the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 established the “workhouse rule,” according to which unemployed people were obliged to enter prison-like workhouses to become eligible for “relief.” The act was intended to cut the cost of “poor relief” and to create what we would now call a labour market. In this market people (or at least their ability to work) would be treated as commodities to be bought and sold by the owners of the great new factories, which were changing the face of Britain.3 A low price for labour aided profits, and when demand fell in recessions this price could be cut even further. When not needed workers did not have to be paid at all. Debates took place on how little low paid …