The unbearable whiteness of class: towards an intersectional reading of poverty discourses in Brexit Britain

难以忍受的白人阶级：对英国脱欧贫困话语的交叉解读

• 批准号: 2084179
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2084179
• 关键词: unbearable; whiteness; class; towards; intersectional

In 2012 Save The Children, an organisation known for its humanitarian work overseas,launched its first domestic appeal. Using the slogan 'It Shouldn't Happen Here', the appealaimed at raising money for British families living in poverty.The response was a ferociousbacklash. Many expressed the view that real poverty only happened in places like the Africancontinent, and the associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society stated that "no child inBritain can possibly be said to be living in that kind of poverty (...) unless their parents aregrossly misusing their handouts" (Murray 2012).This particular moment, when many Britons simultaneously denied the experience of poverty intheir country, and proclaimed that "real" poverty only happens far away, raises severalquestions:1. What does this backlash tell us about understandings of poverty in Britain today?2. What does this particular moment tell us about race in Britain today?3. How does this tie with racialized discourses of poverty?Fast forward to 2016, the decision to leave the European Union has set in motion efforts tounderstand the dynamics at play behind the surprise Brexit vote. Notably, discussions about the'white working class' were propelled to the forefront of political discourse by politicians,academics and media pundits. Given what is known about poverty in Britain, including therelation between poverty and race as evidenced by numerous reports by organisations such asthe Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Runnymede Trust (see Catney and Sabater2015; Khan and Shaheen 2017; Institute of Race Relations 2017), we must also ask:4. How can we explain the gaps between understandings of who is poor and/or workingclass, and who is represented as poor and/or working class?5. What happens when ethnic minorities are erased out of narratives about legitimatepolitical voices in Britain?Both these examples, the backlash against Save the Children's domestic campaign and thediscourse of the 'white working class' present us with a challenge to understand the relationbetween social welfare, social solidarity and the politics of whiteness.Despite the scholarship of Black British feminists who provided us with tools with which tounderstand the intersections of various systems of subordination including gender (Bryan,Dadzie and Scafe 1985; Mirza eds. 1997), and the critical work of cultural theorists who lookedat the social formation of multi-ethnic postwar Britain (see Gilroy 1987; Hall 1980; Centre forContemporary Cultural Studies 1982), there is a lack of consistent and nuanced analysis aboutthe relationship between race and class in Britain today. This also means that there is a gapbetween popular and political perceptions of who is actually poor, and who is represented aspoor. In light of this, the proposed research project contends that there is a need to look into theconstructions of narratives and discourses of poverty and the intersections with race in Britaintoday.

2012年，以海外人道主义工作而闻名的救助儿童会发起了第一次国内呼吁。这场呼吁以“这不应该发生在这里”为口号，旨在为生活在贫困中的英国家庭筹集资金。许多人认为，真实的贫困只发生在非洲大陆这样的地方，亨利杰克逊协会的副主任说，“英国没有一个孩子可能被说成生活在那种贫困中（.）。除非他们的父母严重滥用他们的施舍”（Murray 2012）。这个特殊的时刻，当许多英国人同时否认他们国家的贫困经历，并宣称“真实的”贫困只发生在遥远的地方，提出了几个问题：1.这种反弹告诉我们今天英国对贫困的理解是什么？2.这个特殊的时刻告诉我们今天英国的种族问题是什么？3.这与贫困的种族化话语有什么联系？快进到2016年，离开欧盟的决定已经开始努力理解英国脱欧公投背后的动态。值得注意的是，关于“白色工人阶级”的讨论被政治家、学者和媒体专家推到了政治话语的前沿。鉴于英国贫困的已知情况，包括贫困与种族之间的关系，如约瑟夫·朗特里基金会（JRF）和兰尼米德信托基金会（见Catney和Sabater 2015; Khan和Shaheen 2017;种族关系研究所2017）等组织的许多报告所证明的那样，我们还必须问：4。我们如何解释对谁是穷人和/或工人阶级以及谁是穷人和/或工人阶级的理解之间的差距？5.当少数民族被从关于英国合法政治声音的叙述中抹去时会发生什么？这两个例子，对拯救儿童的国内运动和“白色工人阶级”的话语的反弹，给我们提出了一个挑战，以理解社会福利，社会团结和白人政治之间的关系。尽管英国黑人女权主义者的奖学金谁提供了我们的工具，以理解包括性别在内的各种从属制度的交叉点（布赖恩，Dadzie和Scafe 1985年;米尔扎编辑。1997年），以及文化理论家的批判性工作，他们着眼于战后多民族英国的社会形成（见吉尔罗伊1987年;霍尔1980年;当代文化研究中心1982年），缺乏一致和细致入微的分析，关于种族和阶级之间的关系，在英国今天。这也意味着，对于谁是真正的穷人，谁被描述为穷人，公众和政治的看法之间存在着差距。有鉴于此，拟议的研究项目认为，有必要研究贫困的叙事和话语的结构，以及与种族在英国今天的交叉点。