Working Lives Research Institute
The notion of social capital has exploded to prominence from negligible proportions to become one of the most common “new” concepts across the social sciences. The reason for this is to be found in its profound origins within, and continuing support for, neoliberalism once properly understood, and despite or even because of good intentions to the contrary. Efforts to use social capital more progressively have been few and far between and are more or less certainly doomed to failure. Social capital is also indicative of an oxymoron asocial capital as if capital could be anything other than social. For, with due acknowledgement to the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, “To say capital is social is not at all the same thing as saying the social is capital”. Or, as Alice herself says, who could well have been dreaming of social capital in Wonderland. “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
Please see this link for details: all are welcome and no need to register
Ben Fine -WLRI Lunchtime seminar series January2011 .pdf
The seminar discusses three different groups of working-class research respondents’ responses to the New Labour Government’s ‘Respect Agenda’. These responses are framed as a microcosm of a much larger understanding of how class relations are lived through struggles over moral value. The Respect Agenda is understood as representative of the many other government moral behaviour modification schemes that emphasise the need for psychological individual adaptation rather than sociological understandings of inequality. The paper shows how the government’s demand for respect operated in a climate of disrespect, with the increased intensity of contempt and denigration of working-class culture circulating not only in popular culture but also in government rhetoric.
Please see this link for details: all are welcome and no need to register
Bev Skeggs WLRI Lunchtime seminar series January2011.pdf
Seminars Location is: Room JS2-74 , 31 Jewry Street, London Metropolitan University, EC3N 2EY
Map: /about/map---city-campus.cfm
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Book launch Location is : Women's Library, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT
Map: /about/buildings/womens-library.cfm
Nibbles and drinks are provided
RSVP to J.botmeh@londonmet.ac.uk
WLRI Seminar 20th January 2011