Working-class Communities Research Articles

Recovering psychological trauma in coal mining communities

ABSTRACT To date, there has been little research on the history of work-related mental health issues among coal workers. Much of the coal extraction industry peaked during the early twentieth century and then began its precipitous decline. Mining has high casualty rates, and the medical field did not understand the long-term effects of psychological trauma on mine workers until recently. Newspaper articles and other historical records provide accounts of accidents and tragedies. Heroism is often emphasized in recalling tragic episodes at the expense of recording the emotional stress suffered by survivors. A diverse set of historical sources provides a context for work-related mental health issues in the coal extraction industry. Probing a set of historic oral histories of coal workers and creating analogies to current studies provide additional clues about the under-told story of these historic actors’ general health and well-being. While incorporating oral histories from other regions, focusing on the anthracite coal industry in northeastern Pennsylvania allows us to identify historical actors and helps us think differently about other working-class communities impacted by industrial capitalism.

Asking to thrive: structures supporting young men’s behavioural health in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Abstract Background Men in Northern Ireland are three times more likely to die by suicide and psychiatric morbidity is significantly higher than for the United Kingdom overall, in part due to the Troubles, a 30-year conflict during which there were 34,000 shootings, 14,000 bombings, and 3,500 deaths. Prior studies suggest strong friendships and high collective efficacy in communities are protective against suicide and self-harm in adolescents and that inquiring about supportive people and structures directly-rather than through parental intermediaries-yields more accurate responses. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 adolescent males aged 16-19 from working-class communities across Belfast. Participants were recruited via trusted community partners and often had experiences with sectarianism and restorative justice. A deductive thematic analysis was conducted of interview transcripts, supplemented by responses to the Self-Harm Inventory and a modified Collective Efficacy Scale. Analyses were completed in NVivo and RStudio. Results In addition to male peer friendships in which they could share confidences, participants strongly endorsed the value of youth work organisations as keystones in supporting not only their own behavioural health through positive modelling but also the reduction of antisocial and sectarian behaviours in their communities. Participants named specific aspects of these structures they found most useful, including demonstrating “masculine success” though community engagement and family life, providing a safe venue for socialising, and delivering restorative justice programming. Conclusions Findings from this study suggest that youth work programming is an important component of both adolescent behavioural health promotion and community safety through the reduction of sectarian and other antisocial behaviours. Participants expressed dismay at the reduction of these services and endorsed both their personal and wider community importance. Key messages • Youth workers may provide valuable positive modelling and behavioural health support to the young men. • Youth work programmes may function both for behavioural health promotion and community violence reduction in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The Grand Union Alliance: community-based networking as response to large-scale urban development

Large-scale developments in London often have negative impacts on less well-off communities as they include: demolition of social-rented homes, low levels of new social-rented homes, over-development of luxury housing, loss of existing local industry and replacement of jobs, services and infrastructure that fail to meet the needs of existing low-income communities. However, residents, especially deprived or excluded working class communities, don’t generally engage in the technical and alien language of the planning policy impacting on large-scale developments taking place across London. This paper, written by two community organisers and a researcher, discusses the organising model whereby the Grand Union Alliance, a large network of around 250 groups, individuals and small businesses was gradually developed. The consensus model of working, developed over many years in the Just Space setting, allowed shared positions to come forward across different interests, and supported extensive community-based contributions to the planning process, with some success in influencing planning policy. The paper shares this model of organising, together with some of the challenges and outcomes, in the hope of informing other initiatives to engage with large-scale urban developments across London, and elsewhere.

Agonistic freedoms: enabling disaffected working-class students to turn-back-around to mainstream school

ABSTRACT The sifting and sorting mechanisms of Australia’s education system continue to work to the detriment of groups put at a disadvantage. For mainstream schools serving working-class communities in particular, the rejection of the offers and advantages of schooling continue to result in differential class consequences and inequalities for working-class young people. In response, this paper pursues a more hopeful project of schooling by considering how schools can work to circumvent the alienation of working-class students from the mainstream secondary school system. Foucault’s conceptualisations of ‘power relations’, ‘agonistic freedom’ and ‘technologies of the self’ are used alongside Kamler and Comber’s notion of ‘turn-around pedagogies’ to draw attention to the complex relationships between students’ subjectivities, their shifting dispositions towards school and eventual enticement to turn-back-around to mainstream school.

The Authenticity Problem: Authenticity as a Methodological Trap in People-Centred Research on Working-Class Football Supporting Communities

AbstractThis paper seeks to make a methodological contribution to archaeological praxis of working-class communities, by illuminating how archaeologists engaged in oral history-based research with working-class communities may encounter authenticity as a methodological challenge. Drawing on my PhD research on football as cultural heritage, I will outline the authenticity problem I encountered in the field: the enforcement of hierarchies of authenticity by working-class football supporters in response to their experiences of marginalisation in the sport. In turn, I will not only show how these hierarchies of authenticity present obstacles to researchers looking to build relationships of trust with their subjects, but also indicate some solutions to this authenticity problem. Specifically, I will show how it is often useful to “fall into the trap of authenticity” as a researcher and use the interview setting to discursively construct yourself as authentic on your subject communities’ own terms.

‘Do no harm’: mass supervision and the ruse of carceral humanism

Abstract In recent years, scholarship has chronicled the role of probation in the rise of mass incarceration and has concluded that community supervision is a trap that routinely punishes the poor under the threat of incarceration. Starting in 2010, under a reform-minded new commissioner, the New York City Department of Probation (DOP) sought to roll back probation’s punitive role. In sharp contrast to the tough-on crime approach of previous decades, the DOP adopted the motto ‘Do no harm, do more good, and do it in the community’, and became the first probation department in the nation to spearhead a local justice reinvestment project. Its signature initiative was the decentralization of probation into a series of store front offices known as the Neighbourhood Opportunity Network, which embedded the agency more deeply into poor and working-class communities of colour. Relying on ethnographic research with probation officers, systems involved youth of colour, and non-profit organizations in the South Bronx, this article examines the limits of carceral humanism as a growing trend in recent criminal justice reform efforts.

Sid Chaplin: A Writer with a Cause

The aim of this article is to recover the radical subtext of both the life and work of Sid Chaplin by reasserting the essentially political dimensions of his writing. Chaplin devoted the whole of his career as a writer to documenting not only the decline of the coal mining industry in the north-east of Britain where he lived, but he also traced the impact this process had on the working-class communities that were dependent on the pits. In his two later novels set in the city of Newcastle, The Day of the Sardine (1961) and The Watchers and the Watched (1962), Chaplin went on to dramatize similarly troubled changes in urban working-class life in the 1950s and 60s. The article not only argues that it is this nexus of class, politics and literature that translates so convincingly into his Newcastle novels, it also claims that it is the fundamental radicalism of his own literary project that explains the problematic neglect of his work by both critics and readers.

Regional and socio-demographic variation in laboratory-based predictions of 10-year cardiovascular disease risk among adults in north and south India

ObjectiveCardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in India. There is no laboratory-based CVD risk data among Indians from different regions and backgrounds. This study estimated laboratory-based 10-year CVD risk across different population sub-groups. MethodsData from UDAY derived from cross-sectional surveys of rural and urban populations of northern (Haryana) and southern (Andhra Pradesh) India were analysed. World Health Organization/International Society of Hypertension laboratory-based equations calculated 10-year CVD risk among participants without CVD history. Wilcoxon rank sum test analyzed average CVD risk across subgroups. Chi-square test compared population proportions in different CVD risk categories. Regression analysis assessed the association between CVD risk and participant characteristics. ResultsThe mean (SD) age of the participants (n = 8448) was 53.2 (9.2) years. Males in Haryana had increased CVD risk compared to those in Andhra Pradesh (p < 0.01). In both states, female gender was shown to have a protective effect on CVD risk (p < 0.01). Age correlated with increased risk (p < 0.01). Education level did not affect CVD risk however employment status may have. Hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, smoking, and insufficient exercise were associated with increased CVD risk (p < 0.01). Residence (urban versus rural) and wealth index did not largely affect CVD risk. ConclusionMinor differences exist in the distribution of laboratory-based CVD risk across Indian population cohorts. CVD risk was similar in urban wealthy participants and rural poor and working-class communities in northern and southern India. Public health efforts need to target all major segments of the Indian population to curb the CVD epidemic.

Teachers Challenging Language Discrimination in England’s Schools: A Typology of Resistance

ABSTRACT Recent media coverage and academic scholarship has repeatedly demonstrated that language discrimination is embedded and normalised in England’s schools. We consider language discrimination as a structural phenomenon underpinned by language ideologies which frame the language practices of racialised and working-class communities as deficient. In this article we report on project where we worked closely with a group of teachers who identified as critical, activist educators who were seeking to challenge language discrimination in their classrooms and wider institutions. Our data stems from in-depth interviews and case studies with teachers, where we explored their anti-language discrimination efforts at individual, departmental, and institutional levels. We present a typology for anti-language discrimination efforts, capturing the importance of teacher positionality and stance; research informed practice; community organising; locating local issues of language stigma within broader geopolitical patterns of inequality; individual classroom efforts, and institutional support for critical language work.

Queer Hope in Working-Class Performance: Scottee’s Bravado and Class

Abstract In contemporary Britain, the working-class subject is often portrayed as abject, deficient, and undeserving. In this article, I survey how mainstream theatre has often been complicit in replicating and authenticating these representations of the working class without offering an alternative. I argue that queer performance forms are a way of altering and undermining this narrative of working classness as a deficit. The queer working-class subject is defined by a sense of not fitting in to either the queer or working-class community and is therefore in a unique position to challenge a unifying representation of the working class. In particular, the queer aesthetics identified in José Esteban Muñoz’s notion of utopian performance and the dialectic of hope and disappointment offers both a critique of the present and a look to the future beyond the inevitability of capitalism and heteronormativity. I analyse Scottee’s solo autobiographical performances Bravado (2017) and Class (2019) through the lens of utopia and hope and how the performer’s status as a queer and working-class artist allows him to offer alternatives to the here and now.

The making of a peripheral town in Delhi Metropolis through the displacement of Basti dwellers

This paper reflects upon the aftermath of the eviction of working-class communities from the core locations of Delhi to Narela, over 42 kilometres from Delhi’s centre. The evictees were previously residing in ‘informal settlements’, which are colloquially known as bastis or labelled as ‘slums’ in policy documents. Drawing on interviews and focused group discussions, the paper examines the impact of displacement as experienced by the basti residents. I highlight the struggles that residents faced while making ‘home’ in their new area. Familiarity, repetition, networks, and safety are the few aspects I engage with to explain the process of placemaking in the city. I argue that displacement should be understood beyond the idea of physical dislocation. It should be seen through the lens of ‘place’ and how a place is constructed over a period of time against the larger spatial order that is produced in the cities. The paper contributes to academic understanding of the varying experiences of displacement within the affected communities and the contestations which produce spaces on the margins of cities in the Global South.

Young people, place-based stigma and resistance: A case study of Glasgow’s East End

This article analyses working-class young people’s perceptions of and resistance to place-based stigma, through a case study of a youth-led theatre project in the East End of Glasgow, UK. The impact of stigma on working-class communities is well-established; through the effects of poverty and inequality people and places are stigmatised. Although existing literature emphasises that we must recognise how working-class people construct alternative narratives, there is limited evidence on how people in neighbourhoods with high levels of poverty manage and resist stigma. There is a dearth of research on young people’s resistance to stigma. This qualitative study found promising signs of young people’s agency to resist place-based stigma by constructing alternative narratives. Through creative work, young people were able to convey powerful messages around poverty-related issues, making visible the effects of poverty on individuals and communities and encouraging empathy and understanding. However, it was also evident that individualistic understandings of poverty are so powerfully ingrained that these alternative narratives stopped short of an explicit recognition of structural causes of poverty. This article argues that viewing resistance as a process helps to identify possibilities for supporting young people to further develop critical consciousness, to confront stigmatising discourses in a way that exposes power relations, and to generate activism.

Contemporary archaeological perspectives on intersectional inequality in a welfare state in twentieth-century Finland

AbstractSocial inequalities and marginality often go unrecognised in the Nordic welfare states. This project examines the effects of neoliberalism and intersectional inequality in Finland from a contemporary archaeology perspective; the case study is a Second World War German military camp turned into a working-class community occupied until the 1980s.

Increasing father engagement among minoritised fathers through proactive service support and outreach: insights from a participatory pilot study

ABSTRACT Based on analyses of multi-perspective data generated from a small participatory and exploratory pilot study called Diverse Dads, this article considers how service engagement with minoritised fathers might be addressed in contexts of family and youth support. Semi-structured qualitative interviews and focus groups, complemented by a small survey, were conducted by beneficiaries and employees of a specialist charity supporting young fathers, with regional practitioners, service managers and minoritised fathers. These explored how and why services, which traditionally serve White, working-class communities, might be ‘hard(er) to access’ for minoritised fathers and how this might be addressed. In a context of considerable constraint for services, this article identifies how more accessible, inclusive support pathways and environments might be fostered. Key processes explored include how services can increase their accessibility, visibility, and appeal; become more proactive with outreach to fathers in diverse communities; and sustain father-inclusive support for all fathers.

Feminist Educators against State Neglect

Abstract By the mid-twentieth century a core group of feminist educators in Panama had cemented their reputations as community organizers invested in the empowerment of poor and working-class women. Yet this was a state that rejected calls for female suffrage, labeled attempts at worker organizing as threats to the nation, neglected to provide basic infrastructure and financing for education, and protected the rights of an elite few over those of most citizens. This article offers a window on the work of these feminist educators by examining the organizational leadership of Felicia Santizo and Sara Sotillo, two Afro-descendant contemporaries who taught and organized within predominantly Black and working-class communities while demanding greater access for all poor and working people throughout the country. Through their organizing in the realms of education, labor, community welfare, and politics, including the creation of Panama’s largest teacher’s association and leadership of a pro–working people’s party, both women challenged sexism and looked to education in and outside the classroom as a vital force of transformation. Their work placed them at odds with a state more willing to ignore or silence outspoken feminist organizers and community leaders than to center them in national agendas.

The role of community events in preserving identity in the context of social change: An ethnographic analysis of the World Coal Carrying Championships

This article examines the role community events can play in negotiating forms of community and place identity against a backdrop of social, economic and urban change. Our contention is that in the context of globalisation and de-industrialisation, forms of working-class community may be expressed and recreated through maintaining traditions and practices established in place-based community events. The article is based on an ethnographic study of the World Coal Carrying Championships (WCCC) which involved undertaking in-depth interviews, volunteering, focus groups, observations and archival analysis. The findings show how the WCCC is invested with powerful symbols and invented traditions that are activated through the event. By reconstructing and remobilising shared pasts in the present, the WCCC permits community members to create an affective sense of community in the contemporary context, even in spite of the destabilising loss of other aspects of their industrial lives.

Combating the Slow Economic Violence of Rescue

Abstract: This paper contributes to the growing consensus of voices who articulate how the newfound North American consciousness around “anti-Asian hate” must connect individual acts of violence to structural forms of state and white supremacist violence. Focusing on the policing of Asian massage work, the essay argues that this unique human-itarian commitment reflects the slow economic violence of rescue. It contextualizes the 2021 Atlanta massage murders alongside the work of Red Canary Song (RCS), a grassroots coalition of migrant massage workers, sex workers, and allies organizing against the policing of massage work in New York. The essay echoes an abolitionist call to not only dismantle policing and punishment mechanisms—as these forms of policing have penetrated most aspects of civilian life—but demands the urgency to build a vast network of community resources coupled with imaginative ways of organizing. Abolitionist feminist frameworks must necessarily encompass economic justice, migrant justice, housing justice, and language justice to name a few. One strategy espoused by RCS builds worker power and the capacity for organizing towards the decriminalization of poverty, migration, and low-wage informal and sex work alike. For Asian migrant workers, the fight for justice is not only about the resources needed to live, sleep, and work safely, it is also about changing the deep-seated mix of paternalism and resentment that refuses to acknowledge Asian working-class communities to ability to make choices within constraints.

Exploring the Goals of Social Justice Teaching Through the Eyes of Early Career Science Teachers

ABSTRACT Social justice-oriented teacher education programs infuse critical pedagogies in their coursework to build teachers’ capacity to design and enact teaching that seeks to disrupt systemic oppression and injustice. Graduates of these programs often seek teaching positions in schools that serve working class communities of color with the goal of working alongside students, families, and the community to act as agents of change. Yet, we know that teacher turnover remains high in these schools, especially for early career teachers (i.e. 1–5 years teaching experience). Understanding the needs and challenges that teachers face in their first few years of teaching can help teacher education programs design intentional support systems to ameliorate the lack of support early career teachers experience and issues with teacher turnover. In this paper, we share excerpts from interviews conducted with 20 early career science teachers that shared the social justice strategies, lessons, and pedagogies they used in their classroom. Our findings identified a multitude of teaching practices that depict teachers’ everyday pursuit of social justice in their science classrooms, namely how teachers reflected on their positionality, built restorative relationships with students, developed students’ critical dispositions, built positive science identities, increased student access to science, and incorporated students’ knowledge, experiences, and histories, some of which also presented some challenges for them. We describe these practices and associated challenges with implications for how teacher education can support early career teachers and their alumni in their continued development as social justice educators.

Erasing “Knowable Communities”: From Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to Brassed Off

The paper discusses cinematic representations of working class communities in British cinema from the pre-war documentary movement to (post-)Thatcher feature films chronicling the decline of traditional industries. A particular focus is given to contrasting Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Mark Herman’s Brassed Off. The former title serves as a model example of British New Wave cinema, marking the “discovery” of the working class with its “knowable communities” that revealed them to the general public. The latter film provides an apt illustration of the impact and consequences of Thatcherism on the very same communities. The paper elaborates on selected narrative and visual motifs, investigating the ways in which British filmmakers have striven to depict social changes in British society over the consecutive decades.

Casual culture and football hooligan autobiographies: popular memory, working-class men and racialised masculinities in deindustrialising Britain, 1970s–1990s

ABSTRACT This article explores the development of an important subculture which has received scant academic attention: football’s casual movement of the 1980s. By analysing hooligan autobiographies, it investigates how the casual look spread from Merseyside and Manchester in the late 1970s to encompass every major city and town in Britain by the middle of the following decade. It delineates the attractions of the hooligan firms and shows how, through their use of ritualised violence they fought to become hegemonic in working-class communities. It explores how two key myths about football hooligans became dominant in the popular memory of the 1970s and 1980s. First, the hooligan became uniquely associated with racism in the popular imaginary. The second dominant myth was that the widespread consumption of the drug ecstasy during the acid house and rave years between c.1988 and 1992 saw the end of terrace violence. While the autobiographies largely provide support for the latter, the former is more complex. Via the analysis of the testimony of black and white football hooligans, I show that the racist/hooligan couplet did important ideological work to conceal the degree to which racism continued to figure in British football, into the 1990s, despite the decline in football-related violence.