Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain
Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain

Author: David Jeevendrampillai

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1800080530

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A study of the conditions of being a citizen, belonging and democracy in suburban Britain, this book focuses on understanding how a community takes on the social responsibility and pressures of being a good citizen through what they call ‘stupid’ events, festivals and parades. Building a community is perceived to be an important and necessary act to enable resilience against the perceived threats of neoliberal socio-economic life such as isolation, selfishness and loss of community. Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain explores how authoritative knowledge is developed, maintained and deployed by this group as they encounter other ‘social projects’, such as the local council planning committee or academic projects researching participation in urban planning. The activists, who call themselves the ‘Seething Villagers’, model their community activity on the mythical ancient village of Seething where moral tales of how to work together, love others and be a community are laid out in the Seething Tales. These tales include Seething ‘facts’ such as the fact that the ancient Mountain of Seething was destroyed by a giant. The assertion of fact is central to the mechanisms of play and the refusal of expertise at the heart of the Seething community. The book also stands as a reflexive critique on anthropological practice, as the author examines their role in mobilising knowledge and speaking on behalf of others. Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain is of interest to anthropologists, urban studies scholars, geographers and those interested in the notions of democracy, inclusion, citizenship and anthropological practice.

Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain
Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain

Author: David Jeevendrampillai

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781800080560

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Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain follows a group of community activists in suburban London, as they take on the responsibilities and pressures of being good citizens.

Suburban Urbanities
Suburban Urbanities

Author: Laura Vaughan

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2015-11-12

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1910634174

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Suburban space has traditionally been understood as a formless remnant of physical city expansion, without a dynamic or logic of its own. Suburban Urbanities challenges this view by defining the suburb as a temporally evolving feature of urban growth.Anchored in the architectural research discipline of space syntax, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of urban change, touching on the history of the suburb as well as its current development challenges, with a particular focus on suburban centres. Studies of the high street as a centre for social, economic and cultural exchange provide evidence for its critical role in sustaining local centres over time. Contributors from the architecture, urban design, geography, history and anthropology disciplines examine cases spanning Europe and around the Mediterranean.By linking large-scale city mapping, urban design scale expositions of high street activity and local-scale ethnographies, the book underscores the need to consider suburban space on its own terms as a specific and complex field of social practice

Britishness, Belonging and Citizenship
Britishness, Belonging and Citizenship

Author: Devyani Prabhat

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2018-03-27

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1447344472

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Nationality law in Britain is liberal and expansive in making it possible for immigrants to become citizens. Nonetheless, long-term residents, who are educated and possess skills that are important for the British economy, still face significant barriers to citizenship. This book offers insights into the experiences of long-term residents who have successfully become British citizens, through their own stories and newly commissioned illustrations of the journey of immigration. The goal is to explain the gap between formal law and law in practice, but the focus of the book is not solely on barriers--Devyani Prabhat also explores the feelings of belonging and empowerment that people experience during the citizenship journey.

Monumental Graffiti
Monumental Graffiti

Author: Rafael Schacter

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-10-01

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 0262049228

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What graffiti says about contemporary society, and why it demands our urgent attention as a form of civic expression. What is graffiti—vandalism, ornament, art? What if, rather than any of those things, we thought of graffiti as a monument? How would that change our understanding of graffiti, and, in turn, our understanding of monument? In Monumental Graffiti, curator and anthropologist Rafael Schacter focuses on the material, communicative, and contextual aspects of these two forms of material culture to provide a timely perspective on public art, citizenship, and the city today. He applies monument as a lens to understand graffiti and graffiti as a lens to comprehend monument, challenging us to consider what the appropriate monument for our contemporary world could be. Monumental Graffiti unpacks today’s iconoclastic moment, showing us why graffiti demands our urgent attention as a form of expression that challenges power structures by questioning whose voices are included in—and whose are excluded from—public space. Written from twenty years of embedded research on graffiti, the book includes works from graffiti writers such as 10Foot, Delta, Egs, Honet, Mosa, Petro, Revok, and Wombat, alongside those of artists such as Francis Alÿs, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Klara Liden, Gordon Matta-Clark, William Pope.L, Cy Twombly, and many more. Richly illustrated, this study of graffiti as monument and monument as graffiti is as fascinating as it is ethnographically expansive.

Translocal Geographies
Translocal Geographies

Author: Ayona Datta

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-17

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1317007050

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Bringing together a wide range of original empirical research from locations and interconnected geographical contexts from Europe, Australasia, Asia, Africa, Central and Latin America, this book sets out a different agenda for mobility - one which emphasizes the enduring connectedness between, and embeddedness within, places during and after the experience of mobility. These issues are examined through the themes of home and family, neighbourhoods and city spaces and allow the reader to engage with migrants' diverse practices which are specifically local, yet spatially global. This book breaks new ground by arguing for a spatial understanding of translocality that situates the migrant experience within/across particular 'locales' without confining it to the territorial boundedness of the nation state. It will be of interest to academics and students of social and cultural geography, anthropology and transnational studies.

Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson

Author: Andrew S. Crines

Publisher: Biteback Publishing

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1785900587

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This year marks the centenary of Harold Wilson's birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most impressive general election victory and forty years since his dramatic resignation as Prime Minister. He was one of the longest-serving premiers of the twentieth century, having won a staggering four general elections, yet, despite this monumental record, his place in Labour's history remains somewhat ambiguous. By the end of his two periods in power, both the left and right of the party were highly critical of Wilson - the former regarding him as a traitor to socialism, the latter as contributing directly to British decline. With contributions from leading experts in the fields of political study, and from Wilson's own contemporaries, this remarkable new study offers a timely and wide-ranging reappraisal of one of the giants of twentieth-century politics, examining the context within which he operated, his approach to leadership and responses to changing social and economic norms, the successes and failure of his policies, and how he was viewed by peers from across the political spectrum. Finally, it examines the overall impact of Harold Wilson on the development of British politics.

Being Young, Male and Muslim in Luton
Being Young, Male and Muslim in Luton

Author: Ashraf Hoque

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1787351351

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What is it like to be a young Muslim man in the wake of the 2005 London bombings? What impact do political factors have on the multifaceted identities of young Muslim men? Drawn from the author's ethnographic research of British-born Muslim men in the English town of Luton, Being Young, Muslim and Male in Luton explores the everyday lives of young men and, focusing on how their identity as Muslims has shaped the way they interact with each other, the local community, and the wider world. Through a study of religious values, the pressures of masculinity, the complexities of family and social life, and attitudes towards work and leisure, Ashraf Hoque argues that young Muslims in Luton are subverting what it means to be "British" by consciously prioritizing and rearticulating their "Muslim identities" in novel and dynamic ways that suit their experiences. Employing rich interviews and extensive participant observation, Hoque paints a detailed picture of young Muslims living in a town consistently associated in the popular media with terrorist activity and as a hotbed for radicalization. He challenges widely held assumptions and gives voice to an emerging generation of Muslims who view Britain as their home and are very much invested in the long-term future of the country and their permanent place within it.

White Bound
White Bound

Author: Matthew Hughey

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2012-08-22

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0804783314

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Discussions of race are inevitably fraught with tension, both in opinion and positioning. Too frequently, debates are framed as clear points of opposition—us versus them. And when considering white racial identity, a split between progressive movements and a neoconservative backlash is all too frequently assumed. Taken at face value, it would seem that whites are splintering into antagonistic groups, with differing worldviews, values, and ideological stances. White Bound investigates these dividing lines, questioning the very notion of a fracturing whiteness, and in so doing offers a unique view of white racial identity. Matthew Hughey spent over a year attending the meetings, reading the literature, and interviewing members of two white organizations—a white nationalist group and a white antiracist group. Though he found immediate political differences, he observed surprising similarities. Both groups make meaning of whiteness through a reliance on similar racist and reactionary stories and worldviews. On the whole, this book puts abstract beliefs and theoretical projection about the supposed fracturing of whiteness into relief against the realities of two groups never before directly compared with this much breadth and depth. By examining the similarities and differences between seemingly antithetical white groups, we see not just the many ways of being white, but how these actors make meaning of whiteness in ways that collectively reproduce both white identity and, ultimately, white supremacy.

The Material Culture of Failure
The Material Culture of Failure

Author: David Jeevendrampillai

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-27

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1000184269

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What happens when objects behave unexpectedly or fail to do what they ‘should’? Who defines failure? Is failure always bad? Rather than viewing concepts such as failure, incoherence or incompetence as antithetical to social life, this innovative new book examines the unexpected and surprising ways in which failure can lead to positive and creative results. Combining both theoretical and ethnographic approaches to failure, The Material Culture of Failure explores how failure manifests itself and operates in a variety of contexts. The editors present ten ethnographic encounters of failure – from areas as diverse as design, textiles, religion, beauty, and physical failure – covering Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and the Arabian Gulf. Identifying common themes such as interpersonal, national and religious articulations of power and identity, the book shows some of the underlying assumptions that are revealed when materials fail, designs crumble, or things develop unexpectedly.The first anthropological study dedicated to theorizing failure, this innovative collection offers fresh insights based on the latest scholarship. Destined to stimulate a new area of research, the book makes a vital contribution to material culture studies and related social science theory.