Beverley Skeggs

The unremitting explosion of reality television across the schedules has become a sustainable global phenomenon generating considerable popular and political fervour.The zeal with which television executives seize on the easily replicated formats is matched equally by the eagerness of audiences to offer themselves up as television participants for others to watch and criticise. But how do we react to so many people breaking down, fronting up, tearing apart, dominating, empathising, humiliating, and seemingly laying bare their raw emotion for our entertainment? Do we feel sad when others are sad? Or are we relieved by the knowledge that our circumstances might be better? As reality television extends into the experiences of the everyday, it makes dramatic and often shocking the mundane aspects of our intimate relations, inviting us as viewers into a volatile arena of mediated morality.This book addresses the impact of this endless opening out of intimacy as an entertainment trend that erodes the traditional boundaries between spectator and performer demanding new tools for capturing television’s relationships with audiences. Rather than asking how the reality television genre is interpreted as ‘text’ or representation the authors investigate the politics of viewer encounters as interventions, evocations, and more generally mediated social relations.The authors show how different reactions can involve viewers in tournaments of value, as women viewers empathise and struggle to validate their own lives. The authors use these detailed responses to challenge theories of the self, governmentality and ideology.A must read for both students and researchers in audience studies, television studies and media and communication studies.

The unremitting explosion of reality television across the schedules has become a sustainable global phenomenon generating considerable popular and political fervour.The zeal with which television executives seize on the easily replicated formats is matched equally by the eagerness of audiences to offer themselves up as television participants for others to watch and criticise. But how do we react to so many people breaking down, fronting up, tearing apart, dominating, empathising, humiliating, and seemingly laying bare their raw emotion for our entertainment? Do we feel sad when others are sad? Or are we relieved by the knowledge that our circumstances might be better? As reality television extends into the experiences of the everyday, it makes dramatic and often shocking the mundane aspects of our intimate relations, inviting us as viewers into a volatile arena of mediated morality.This book addresses the impact of this endless opening out of intimacy as an entertainment trend that erodes the traditional boundaries between spectator and performer demanding new tools for capturing television’s relationships with audiences. Rather than asking how the reality television genre is interpreted as ‘text’ or representation the authors investigate the politics of viewer encounters as interventions, evocations, and more generally mediated social relations.The authors show how different reactions can involve viewers in tournaments of value, as women viewers empathise and struggle to validate their own lives. The authors use these detailed responses to challenge theories of the self, governmentality and ideology.A must read for both students and researchers in audience studies, television studies and media and communication studies.

Luokkien on sanottu kadonneen, mutta luokkatutkimuksen elinvoimaisuudesta päätellen niitä on edelleen olemassa, joskin eri muodoissa kuin aiemmin. Beverley Skeggs edustaa luokkatutkimusta, jossa pääasia ei ole ihmisten tilastointi eri luokkiin taloudellisten seikkojen nojalla. Sen sijaan hän lähestyy yhteiskuntaluokkia kulttuurin ja arvottamisen näkökulmista.Skeggs tarkastelee sitä, kuinka tietyistä ryhmistä tulee kulttuurisesti määritettyjä ja kuinka määrittely ja symbolointi tapahtuvat? Miten joistakin kulttuurin osista tulee hyviä ja arvokkaita, toisista pahoja ja arvottomia? Miksi luokittelu on ylipäänsä meidän tapamme ymmärtää nykyaikaa? Hän analysoi myös sitä, kuinka tällaisten määrittelyjen kautta rakennetaan ja arvotetaan yhteiskunnallisia luokkia. Arvottamista ja määrittelyä harjoitetaan sekä suorasti että epäsuorasti niin populaarikulttuurissa, poliittisessa retoriikassa kuin akateemisessa tutkimuksessakin. Arvottomina pidettyjen luokkien avulla muiden on mahdollista tunnistaa oma erilaisuutensa ja arvonsa - sekä taloudellinen että moraalinen.Skeggs on tuonut luokkatutkimukseen uusia metodologisia ja teoreettisia avauksia, jotka ovat merkinneet läpimurtoa luokkatutkimuksen alueella. Hän toimii sosiologian professorina Lontoon yliopiston Goldsmiths' Collegessa.

Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation. Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.

Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation. Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.

Sexuality and the Politics of Violence offers a timely and critical exploration of issues of safety and security at the centre of responses to violence. Through a multi-disciplinary analysis, drawing on feminism, lesbian and gay studies, sociology, cultural geography, criminology and critical legal scholarship, the book offers to transform the way we understand and respond to the challenges raised by violence. It breaks new ground in its examination of the rhetoric and politics of violence, property, home, cosmopolitanism and stranger danger in the generation of safety and security. Using interviews, focus groups and surveys with lesbians and gay men, Sexuality and the Politics of Violence draws upon 'real life' experiences of safety and security. It raises some fundamental challenges to the law and order politics of existing scholarship and activism on homophobic hate crime.

Sexuality and the Politics of Violence offers a timely and critical exploration of issues of safety and security at the centre of responses to violence. Through a multi-disciplinary analysis, drawing on feminism, lesbian and gay studies, sociology, cultural geography, criminology and critical legal scholarship, the book offers to transform the way we understand and respond to the challenges raised by violence. It breaks new ground in its examination of the rhetoric and politics of violence, property, home, cosmopolitanism and stranger danger in the generation of safety and security. Using interviews, focus groups and surveys with lesbians and gay men, Sexuality and the Politics of Violence draws upon 'real life' experiences of safety and security. It raises some fundamental challenges to the law and order politics of existing scholarship and activism on homophobic hate crime.

Respektabilitet är ett av de mest genomgripande tecknen på klasstillhörighet. Respektabiliteten präglar vårt sätt att tala, vem vi talar med, hur vi klassificerar andra, vad vi studerar och hur vi vet vilka vi är (eller inte är). De som bryr sig om respektabilitet är oftast de som inte anses vara respektabla. Arbetarklassen har genom historien ständigt beskrivits som farlig, förorenande, hotande, revolutionär, patologisk och respektlös. Kort sagt: Icke respektabel . I den uppmärksammade studien "Att bli respektabel" sätter Beverley Skeggs in teoretiska debatter i ett konkret sammanhang. Boken grundar sig på forskning som bedrivits under sammanlagt tolv år, varav tre år helt har ägnats åt deltagande observation på fältet. Skeggs har studerat 83 vita arbetarklasskvinnor i nordvästra England. Hon har följt deras banor genom arbetsmarknad, utbildning och familj. "Att bli respektabel" kan beskrivas som en modernistisk etnografi, vilken koncentrerar sig på hur subjektiviteter konstrueras på en rad olika platser och genom tiden och därigenom möjliggör långtidsanalyser av förflyttningar, investeringar och positioner. Den hör hemma i den brittiska kulturforskningstraditionen i det avseendet att teoretiska, metodologiska och politiska frågor bearbetas genom empirisk förståelse och de historiska arv som genomsyrar samtida föreställningar uppmärksammas noggrant. Boken stödjer sig på en rad kulturteoretiker, bland dem Pierre Bourdieu, och feministiska teoretiker som får kugga i kvinnorna erfarenheter av att leva i olika sociala positioner och kulturella föreställningar. Även om "Att bli respektabel" bygger på en specifik grupp kvinnors försök att hitta framkomliga vägar i klass, kön, sexualitet, femininitet, omvårdnad och feminism, så är bokens inriktning allmännare än så. Den ifrågasätter de teoretiska ramar feminister, kulturteoretiker och sociologer har skapat för att förstå hur kvinnor lever och producerar sig själva genom sociala och kulturella relationer. Genom att använda respektabilitet som ett analysredskap vill Skeggs återinföra klass i feminist- och kulturteori, eftersom klass som begrepp och arbetarklasskvinnor som grupp i det närmaste har försvunnit från feminismens och kulturteorins dagordning. Som "Att bli respektabel" visar uppkommer dock kategorin »kvinna» alltid genom processer som innefattar klass, och klassindelning ger synnerligen påtagliga effekter på det dagliga livet. Bevereley Skeggs är sociolog och verksam vid universitetet i Lancaster.