Multiculturalism
- Cultural and social changes in Britain problematic and difficult to achieve
- A lot of confusion, anxiety, questions of what to do next
- Post War Immigration
(Before the war there was also a lot of migration e.g. Saxons, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons)
- 1960 Enoch Powell further development of multiculturalism - a speech about migration
- 1980s - Brixton riots/rebellions
- 1990s Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson Report
(one of the most important documents published in Britain after the II World War
- Bradford riots, 9/11/ 7/7\
London - the most multicultural place in the world. Great cultural diversity. (some view it as a positive phenomenon, some are worried)
The world's melting pot: London has always been a multicultural metropolis.
A mosaic of peoples, races, colours, languages, faiths, cultures.
Ad1.
The break up of the British Empire
End of Empire, it started to collapse almost immediately after the war
1947 Indian Independence
Quick unraveling over next 20 years - countries discovering their independence.
Growth of the Commonwealth (1931) in 50s and 60s
Still some positive views of Britain as a mother country, as a centre of the global network
People from India and many poor countries started to think about immigration.
Ship `Empire Windrush' 1948 symbolic beginnings of migration
The assumption was that once the economy is establish, people will leave the country, but they didn't .
Pretty stable, large communities
British people never planned ahead and didn't think about the consequences.
Ad2. Enoch Powell
Immigrants: taking out jobs, setting up British community.
`Rivers of blood' 1968
`The black people will have a whip-hand over the white men'
He thought about the dangers of migration.
Political controversy
The government wanted to sweep it under the carpet
Broken Britain
Britain viewed as a crime-ridden state where society and common sense have failed. A perceived widespread state of social decay in the United Kingdom.
Britain has experienced too much change, losing cohesion, experienced fragmentation, it is broken, it is endangered. We are anxious about the direction towards it is heading (changes are too dramatic)
Stiff upper lip - reserved, introverted, emotionally closed (The idea of old-fashioned, emotionally restrained culture, formal behaviour. We live in a world full of cultural stereotypes. Pattern of social and cultural changes. Stereotype: The culture of Keep Calm and Carry On. Values, attitude, Informalisation. Nowadays, Britain has become highly informal.)
Currently: open to new experiences, adventurous, informal and curious about the world and others
Institutional and value change
Mixed society, you are expected to observe the culture, language, customs etc. (France)
Britain allowed developed and advanced multiculturalism, foreigners are not expected to observe, there were no expectations towards them (free immigration policy)
The changes have been profound and touched upon various social layers.
What we need to fear is not the pot-pourri of peoples but the lack of the conditions that have enabled multiculturalism to thrive: jobs, homes, education, opportunities - all those elements that ensure integration into the wider community.
Emigration
Rising rates of violent youth crime
Hedonism, loosening up
Richard Hoggart
is a British academic whose career has covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with emphasis on British popular culture. The Uses of Literacy [1] (1957) is Hoggart's most cited work. Partly autobiography, it was interpreted as lamenting the loss of an authentic popular culture and denouncing the imposition of a mass culture by the culture industries. In recent works he regretted the decline in moral authority that he holds religion once provided and attacked contemporary education for its emphasis on the 'vocational' and 'cultural relativism' for its tendency to concentrate on the popular and meretricious.
The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) was a research centre at the University of Birmingham, England. It was founded in 1964 by Richard Hoggart, its first director. Its object of study was the then new field of cultural studies.
Some areas studied by the Birmingham Centre and those associated with it include subculture, popular culture, and media studies. The Centre, and the theorists associated with it, tend to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of culture, incorporating diverse elements such as Marxism, post-structuralism, feminism, and critical race theory, as well as more traditional methodologies such as sociology and ethnography
Education
Education in Britain is a cultural war.
There is always some conflict in education.
Education is used as a tool to fix problems with cultural society.
Permanent changes
Social inclusion, the education system opens to include more people. Is it more democratic?
Therapy culture: emotional literacy and self-esteem
Governments in Britain are taking interests in how the society feels.
They are monitoring, interested in out well-being. Our society and education is saturated in cultural trends.
Ogolnie bardzo to chodzi o to ze po okresie hossy w edukacji poziom madrych ludzi sie obniżył - simple as such wiec zdecydowano podnieść poprzeczke i nałozyli rygor i ludzie sie zaczeli załamywac. W 1997 Labour rząd wymyslil wlasnie ta terapie zeby podniesc self esteem. Przyczyną wprowadzenia była illetarcy, lower social mobility i status itd. Wtedy New labour rzad wprowadzil counselling do szkol, drama i wellbeing classes itp. Takze aby sie bardziej przyblizyc do ludzi. Ludzie stali sie bardziej otwarci (np te tv shows gdzie placza) ale tez vulnerable.
Estuary English
- is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. The name comes from the area around the Thames, particularly its Estuary. Estuary English can be heard in London, Kent, north Surrey and south Essex. Estuary English shares many features with Cockney, and there is some debate among linguists as to where Cockney speech ends and Estuary English begins. Studies have indicated that Estuary English is not a single coherent form of English; rather, the reality behind the construct consists of some (but not all) phonetic features of working-class London speech spreading at various rates socially into middle-class speech and geographically into other accents of south-eastern England. (Non-rhoticity. Elision of r before other consonants for ex. cart is pronunced /kɑːt/, Use of intrusive R: pronouncing an "r" sound when no r is present to prevent consecutive vowel sounds, A broad A (ɑː) in words such as bath, grass, laugh, etc., T glottalization, H-dropping etc.)
Social mobility
is the movement of individuals or groups in social standing social position. It may refer to classes, ethnic groups, or entire nations, and may measure health status, literacy, or education — but more commonly it refers to individuals or families, and their change in income.[1] It also typically refers to vertical mobility—movement of individuals or groups up (or down) from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marriage; but can also refer to horizontal mobility—movement from one position to another within the same social level.
Globalization
Sport
Widespread of football not due to local traditions but due to direct export by Englishmen;
Football established itself as a national game in England with a very high speed;
Crucial changes in the quality of social life;
Football sank its roots deeply into urban society, not only in England, but also other parts of Europe, or even Africa;
It spread not where the British had direct political control but in those parts of the world where they traded and worked;
Global industrial and imperial pre-eminence;
British goods traded in practically every corner in the world;
People enthusiastic about spreading the game, authorities enthusiastic about preventing it;
Played in Turkey, Greece and Armenia;
Global cities
A global city is a city generally considered to be an important node in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated, and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade.
• Nazwa rozpoznawana na całym świecie i jednoznacznie kojarzona z danym miastem
• Międzynarodowe wpływy i udział w wydarzeniach o zasięgu światowym (np. w Nowym Jorku mieści się główna siedziba ONZ)
• Duże, międzynarodowe lotnisko, będące bazą i punktem przesiadkowym dla przynajmniej kilku międzynarodowych linii lotniczych (np. Amsterdam-Schiphol)
• Rozbudowana infrastruktura transportowa obejmująca połączenia drogowe (w tym autostrady), sieć kolejową i rozwinięty transport miejski
• W świecie zachodnim - obecność wielu kultur i społeczności emigracyjnych, w innych częściach świata - obecność dużej liczby zagranicznych przedsiębiorstw
• Obecność międzynarodowych instytucji finansowych, firm prawniczych, siedzib wielkich koncernów oraz giełdy, która ma wpływ na światową ekonomię
• Rozwinięta infrastruktura telekomunikacyjna
• Instytucje kulturalne i naukowe o światowej sławie (np. Uniwersytet Cambridge)
• Festiwale i premiery filmowe, teatry, orkiestry, chóry i galerie
• Wpływowe media o zasięgu międzynarodowym (np. BBC czy Time Warner)
• Obiekty sportowe wysokiej klasy, ligowe kluby sportowe i zdolność do organizacji imprez o znaczeniu międzynarodowym (np. Igrzyska olimpijskie)
Macpherson Report
Sir William Macpherson, retired high court judge led this inquiry into the conduct of the police during this murder investigation.
analyses institutional and individual behaviour of the police during the murder investigation of Stephen Lawrence.
criticises the Metropolitan Police (Police force in London) and concludes that the police did not carry out the investigation in an appropriate manner.
the Metropolitan police force to be institutionally racist
The first officers to arrive at the crime scene did not administer first aid to Stephen Lawrence.
They were also accused of being insensitive and racially stereotyping Stephen due to his ethnicity.
Key witnesses of the incident such as Stephen's friend (Duwayne Brooks) who was with Stephen when he was murdered was not treated appropriately as a victim.
Liaison officers were unprofessional, unhelpful and insensitive towards the victim's family following the murder.
New Labour
New Labour refers to a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994 which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. It was presented as the brand of a newly reformed party that had altered Clause IV and endorsed market economics. The branding was extensively used while the party was in government, between 1997 and 2010. New Labour won landslide election victories in 1997 and 2001, and won again in 2005. In 2007, Blair resigned as the party's leader and was succeeded by Gordon Brown. Labour did not win the 2010 general election, which resulted in a hung parliament and led to the creation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government; Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister, and as Labour leader shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by Ed Miliband after that year's leadership election.
Cricket
Close links between sports and politics.
Sport affects nationalism and vice versa;
Sporting character can reflect national consciousness and vice versa;
Sporting nationalism peaks when a nation feels insecure or threatened;
Competitive sports can reflect or maintain social psychology;
Cricket in India fostered nationalism and communalism
By the 1920 and the 1930 the tournaments had become very popular;
and the organizers recognized its commercial potential
In Bombay crocket was communal, in other parts of the country it wasn't;
In Bengal cricket was adopted by the middle classes and elites in order to beat their colonial rulers;
Cricket was used as a way of “beating the British”;
The first Indian team to tour England was a Parsi team in 1888
The game of cricket has naturally suited in the Indian consciousness;
They helped the society to forget about poverty, corrupt and brutal politicians !!!
India's victory in the World Cup (1983);
India is seen as a cricket crazy nation;
Growing popularity of cricket due to mass media. People who were never interested in cricket started watching it;
Multinational corporations needed famous cricketers for being their brands' ambassadors;
The companies boosted popularity of the cricket players; (Cola, Pepsi etc.)
Industrial Revolution
- The Industrial Revolution was a period from 1750 to 1850 where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times.
- There were two main values that really drove the industrial revolution in Britain. These values were self-interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth. These advancements also greatly benefitted the British society as a whole. Countries around the world started to recognize the changes and advancements in Britain and use them as an example to begin their own industrial revolutions.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
poet and critic, worked as inspector of schools
travelling across England and Europe, investigating Nonconformist schools, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford
cultural critic in Culture and Anarchy (1869), where he wrote that society is heading towards anarchy
• A vacuum in which anarchy is let loose: 'anarchy' as a synonym for popular culture
• Context: gradual extension of the franchise and agitation for it (1866-67) to those `unprepared' for participation - and leadership
• The mechanisation of production
F R Leavis (1895-1978)
- the literary critic
-Mass civilisation and Minority Culture (1930)
-Continues the theme: 20c marked by increasing cultural decline (standardisation, levelling down)
To be resisted through education
Mass civilisation and Minority Culture (1930)
Reiterates the central idea: culture has always been in minority keeping
This minority has experienced a collapse of authority
Traditions of taste and the literary canon being reversed by popular sentiment and the vote
This will lead to a loss of civilisation and chaos - Anarchy
E.P. Thompson (1924-1993)
the radical historian
The Making of the English Working Classes, 1963
• Class is not a thing it is a historical process that can only be grasped in hindsight
• Study of apparently unconnected events and sub-processes - the raw material of experience and consciousness
• It is not a STRUCTURE
• Crucial: emphasis of AGENCY over STRUCTURE - very important development for Cultural Studies
• The experiences, values, ideas actions and desires of ORDINARY PEOPLE
• Massively expands idea of culture, far beyond Leavis
John Clarke: Skinheads and the `magical recovery of community'
• Break up of communities
• Dispersal of people
• Immigration
• Loss of identity
• Magical recovery: hyper-masculine symbolism, exaggerated working class, style, racism, ska music
Dick Hebdige an expatriate British media theorist and sociologist most commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its resistance against the mainstream of society- Subculture, 1979
• Punks are working class
• Subcultures are inherently critical of dominant social orders
• Subcultural codes go against the naturalisation process: symbolism and style wars
• Bricolage: Challenging consumption by changing the meanings of commodities
In Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Hebdige argues that the styles of Britain's postwar working-class youth subcultures challenge dominant ideology, hegemony, and social normalization through symbolic forms of resistance. Hebdige focuses, in particular, on the evolution of styles in subcultures such as Teddy boys, mods, rockers, skinheads and punks. According to Hebdige, style is constructed through a combination of clothing, music, dance, make-up and drugs.
Skinheads (opposing contradiction): hair, boots, nation, belonging, racism, violence, curry, ska…
Punks (representing contradiction): boredom, noise, dysfunction, hair, safety pins, glue, shock, nation,
`Homology' - a structural 'resonance' between the different elements making up a socio-cultural whole. The ways in which the music, dress, choice of drugs, etc. add up to a coherent lifestyle.
Roger Scruton, An Intelligent Person''s Guide to Modern Culture, 1998
Popular culture and subcultural activity are not marginalised or oppressed; they are now `official' culture (e.g. Blair and Oasis, Obama's ipod)
`Youth' do not have too little freedom; they have too much (and too little structure)
Individuals must shoulder the burden of identity/group formation in the absence of older institutions and patterns
Subculturess provide are a solution to the disappearance of membership
Subculture = the appearance of membership without the old demands and responsibilities, the extension of youth.