Culture, Class, Connection: Bridging Debates on Contemporary Inequality in the UK and Japan

该提案将在英国和日本之间建立一个学术网络，长期关注发展对社会阶层的共同理解，以及如何最好地将其作为解决当今世界面临的可持续发展最大挑战之一的工具：日益严重的社会和经济不平等。我们意识到地理因素在这里的作用，因为虽然南北收入不平等可能在全球范围内得到缓解，但由于中国和印度等经济体的快速增长[F1]，在这两个国家内部，这种提升显然是高度不平衡的[F2；F3]。同样，在英国、美国和日本等发达经济体，我们早就意识到地区之间的社会经济不平等，但直到现在，我们才面临着它们带来的深刻政治后果。首先，该提案提供了一种方法，将在英国和日本从事这些问题研究的学者聚集在一起，组成由PI （Cunningham）和CO-Is （Majima, Miles， Savage和Slater）组成的核心团队。然后，它将为在日本和英国不同地区的会议计划提供资源，这将使我们有机会接触更多的学者，就当今阶级结构和身份的不同方面交流知识。我们将于2019年初和2020年初分两期举办5场交流研讨会。每一次会议都将提供机会，使第三国的一位具有国际地位的著名主讲人和五位国家专题专家，以及更广泛的公开与会者参加会议。我们的主题和领导者是：(i)阶级，不平等和生命历程（斯莱特）；（ii）消费和阶级形成的历史- (Majima)；文化价值、文化习俗、阶级和不平等-（英里）；不平等的阶级和空间划分-（坎宁安）；(v)关于阶级和不平等的全球化辩论-（萨维奇）。围绕这些主题将社会阶层和不平等的主要学者聚集在一起，将为两国之间建立一个强大而广泛的研究网络提供基础。这个网络将起到弥合ESRC在这些领域工作的学者之间目前的分歧的作用，从而导致充满活力的新研究合作。一个具体的目标是利用这笔连接资金作为一个启动平台，利用调查、访谈和民族志方法，对当今日本和英国的社会阶层进行大规模的比较调查，这是继GBCS项目及其畅销专著《21世纪的社会阶层》之后的工作。作为此次合作的启动框架，GBCS项目模式的成功表明，不仅学术界，而且公众、智库、政策制定者和私营部门都将对新的研究成果产生浓厚兴趣，这一研究成果具有很大的潜力。研究结果也将与那些在慈善和第三部门工作的人有关，他们处理日常的社会排斥问题。我们组建了一支拥有不同技能和经验基础的团队，其中包括在英国和日本拥有在文化、分层和身份领域全球声誉的联合研究员，以及在当代和历史不平等问题上拥有不断发展的国际形象的ECR PI。这是一个真正的跨学科小组，横跨地理学、社会学、历史学和人类学。其成员在从地理信息系统和统计到档案、访谈和民族志方法等一系列方法方面具有专门知识。除了我们打算在本提案中建立的网络外，我们还可以利用跨越各大洲的专业网络，有可能将本提案的影响范围远远超出日英轴心。

This proposal will build a network of scholarship between the UK and Japan with a long-term focus on the development of a shared understanding of social class and how it might best be used as a tool to address one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development the world faces today: rising social and economic inequality. We are aware of the role of geography here, for whilst north-south income inequalities may be easing at the global scale due to the rapid growth of economies like those of China and India, [F1], within both countries it is clear that such uplifts are highly uneven [F2;F3]. Likewise, in advanced economies like the UK, USA and Japan, we have long been aware of socio-economic inequalities between regions, but only now are we being faced with the profound political consequences of them. In the first instance the proposal provides the means to bring together academics working on these issues in the UK and Japan in the Core team of PI (Cunningham) and CO-Is (Majima, Miles, Savage and Slater). It will then provide the resources for a programme of meetings in different parts of Japan and the UK that will allow the opportunity for us to engage a much wider body of scholars to exchange knowledge on different aspects of class structure and identity today. We will hold five exchange workshops across two periods in early-2019 and early-2020. Each will provide the opportunity for the involvement of one prominent keynote of international stature from a third country and five national thematic specialists, in addition to a wider open audience of participants. Our themes and leaders are: (i) Class, inequality and the lifecourse (Slater); (ii) Consumption and histories of class formation - (Majima); (iii) Cultural value, cultural practice, class and inequality - (Miles); (iv) Class and spatial divisions of inequality - (Cunningham); (v) Globalising debates on class and inequality - (Savage). Bringing together leading scholars of social class and inequality around these themes will provide the basis for the development of a robust and extensive research network between the two countries. This network will act to bridge the current divide identified by the ESRC between academics working in these fields, leading to dynamic new research collaborations. A specific goal is to use this connectivity funding as a launchpad for a large-scale comparative investigation of social class in Japan and the UK today, using survey, interview and ethnographic methods, that follows on from the GBCS project and its best-selling monograph, 'Social Class in the 21st Century'. The success of the GBCS project model as a starting framework for this collaboration indicates that there is very strong potential to produce new research findings that will be of keen interest not only to the academic community but also to the general public, think tanks, policymakers and the private sector. The findings will also be relevant to those working in the charitable and third sectors, dealing with issues of everyday social exclusion. We have assembled a team with a diverse skillset and experience base, ranging from Co-Is in both the UK and Japan with global reputations in the field of culture, stratification and identity to a PI who is an ECR with a developing international profile in contemporary and historic inequality. This is a truly inter-disciplinary group, spanning geography, sociology, history and anthropology. Its members have expertise in working with and across a range of methodologies, from geographical information systems and statistics to archival, interview and ethnographic methods. In addition to the network we intend to build in this proposal, we can also draw on professional webs which span all continents, with the potential to push the reach of this proposal well beyond the Japan-UK axis.