Contested Britain

A distinctive and original analysis of how the politics of the UK and the lives of British citizens have evolved in the first decades of the twenty-first century, this book provides an interdisciplinary critical examination of the roots, motivations and interconnectedness of austerity politics, the Brexit vote and the rise of populist politics in the Britain. Bringing together case studies and perspectives from an array of international researchers across the social sciences, it dissects the ways that Britain has become increasingly contested with profound difference of geography, generation, gender, ‘race’ and class, and considers the emergence of a range of practices, institutions and politics that challenge the hegemony of austerity.

A distinctive and original analysis of how the politics of the UK and the lives of British citizens have evolved in the first decades of the twenty-first century, this book provides an interdisciplinary critical examination of the roots, motivations and interconnectedness of austerity politics, the Brexit vote and the rise of populist politics in the Britain. Bringing together case studies and perspectives from an array of international researchers across the social sciences, it dissects the ways that Britain has become increasingly contested with profound difference of geography, generation, gender, ‘race’ and class, and considers the emergence of a range of practices, institutions and politics that challenge the hegemony of austerity.

Brings together interdisciplinary and international case studies to provide a distinctive analysis of how politics in the UK and the lives of British citizens have evolved in the first decades of the twenty-first century, focusing on the interconnectedness of austerity politics, the Brexit vote and the rise of populist politics.

Recent years have seen a re-examination of Britain's imperialist past, with changes to how its citizens understand, study and scrutinize its history. In Britain's Contested History, eminent historian Bernard Porter explores the most contested aspects of British history from 1800 to the present day. Examining issues such as Brexit, recent reassessments of Winston Churchill's historical record, the so-called 'culture wars' and Britain's uncomfortable reckoning with its imperial past, the book reconsiders what it means to be a “patriot” in Britain.

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a new phenomenon in public monuments and civic ornamentation. Whereas in former times public statuary had customarily been reserved for 'warriors and statesmen, kings and rulers of men', a new trend was emerging for towns to commemorate their own citizens. As the subjects immortalised in stone and bronze broadened beyond the traditional ruling classes to include radicals and reformers, it necessitated a corresponding widening of the language and understanding of public statuary. Contested Sites explores the role of these commemorations in radical public life in Britain. Despite recent advances in the understanding of the importance of symbols in public discourse, political monuments have received little attention from historians. This is to be regretted, for commemorations are statements of public identity and memory that have their politics; they are 'embedded in complex class, gender and power relations that determine what is remembered (or forgotten)'. Examining monuments, plaques and tombstones commemorating a variety of popular movements and reforming individuals, the contributions in Contested Sites reveal the relations that went into the making of public memory in modern Britain and its radical tradition.

This is the first text to address British Chinese culture. It explores British Chinese cultural politics in terms of national and international debates on the Chinese diaspora, race, multiculture, identity and belonging, and transnational ‘Chineseness’. Collectively, the essays look at how notions of ‘British Chinese culture’ have been constructed and challenged in the visual arts, theatre and performance, and film, since the mid-1980s. They contest British Chinese invisibility, showing how practice is not only heterogeneous, but is forged through shifting historical and political contexts; continued racialization, the currency of Orientalist stereotypes and the possibility of their subversion; the policies of institutions and their funding strategies; and dynamic relationships with transnationalisms. The book brings a fresh perspective that makes both an empirical and theoretical contribution to the study of race and cultural production, whilst critically interrogating the very notion of British Chineseness.

Contested Ground provides a comprehensive and up to date account of the processes and experiences which shaped the lives of Aboriginal Australians from 1788 to the present. It integrates eye-witness accounts, oral histories and historical research to present the first colony-by-colony, state by state history of Aboriginal-white relations. Contested Ground tells a story of dispossession and denial but it is also a positive account, revealing the persistent struggles of Aboriginal communities for a better future. Clearly written and generously illustrated, this book demonstrates why Australian Aboriginal history, like the very land itself, remains contested ground. 'Both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians have a lot to learn about each other before reconciliation between the two peoples can be realised. This book will go a long way towards achieving that end.' - Paul Behrendt.

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.