Community, Locality and Social(ist) Transformation

Community is elusive, desirable, rhetorical; something lost and something to be built; a relationship, a concept, a synonym, a place (real or imagined). This article explores the roles that the complexity of community’s conceptualisation has played in the development of political identities, goals and rationales for action. Drawing on the ways in which it has been conceptualised and utilised in sociological, historical and political understandings of social change, and a series of interviews with members of British socialist organisations, I examine the relationship and equation between ‘community’, and ‘location’, ‘local’ and ‘place’ that develop as these terms become drawn into a wider project for social transformation. I argue that ideas of location have not only framed how community is operationalised to imagine and enact this transformation, but that location itself is conceptualised in multiple, equally complex ways through this association. Social change becomes relatable, an articulable experience of large-scale processes, of social problems, of power and resistance. Community is reified, and change is made possible through a sense of locality

Canonical Generations and the British Left: The Narrative Construction of the Miners’ Strike 1984–85

‘Generations’ have been invoked to describe a variety of social and cultural relationships, and to understand the development of self-conscious group identity. Equally, the term can be an applied label and politically useful construct; generations can be retrospectively produced. Drawing on the concept of ‘canonical generations’ – those whose experiences come to epitomise an event of historic and symbolic importance – this article examines the narrative creation and functions of ‘generations’ as collective memory shapes and re-shapes the desire for social change. Building a case study of the canonical role of the miners’ strike of 1984–85 in the narrative history of the British left, it examines the selective appropriation and transmission of the past in the development of political consciousness. It foregrounds the autobiographical narratives of activists who, in examining and legitimising their own actions and prospects, (re)produce a ‘generation’ in order to create a relatable and useful historical understanding

Heritage Work: the Preservations and Performances of Thames Sailing Barges

‘Heritage’ represents a series of contested and contingent relationships in the preservation and performance of the past. It is a relationship made all the more complex by taking into account the work that goes into both aspects: preserving what would otherwise be lost, and actively seeking public exposure and support. Work has been central to studies of heritage practices in the context of deindustrialisation: how working identities and communities use or become used in the development of heritage-led regeneration. This article examines what it is to engage in forms of work defined by their personal, community and commercial heritage appeal. It presents a study of those who live and work on Thames sailing barges – historic cargo vessels whose future survival relies on the impetus to preserve them as part of an industrial heritage, and in their fulfilment of a number of (often problematic) performative roles

The social life of Utopia

The 'collapse' of communism in the Soviet Union, and the resulting shockwave that unsettled the organised left across the world, came to define and close the story of the twentieth cenrury attempt to build for socialism. For the organisations of the British left, the period of the 19805 and 19905 saw major shifts both in attitude and organisational structure, weakening the strength of positions and influence that they held within the labour and union movements. However, following the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008, the concept of socialism has been revisited in academic discussion with the aim of reinvigorating it for the twenty-fIrst cennny. Drawing on an oral historical approach, the research presented here in thirtyfour interviews with left-wing activists, provides a new ground-level narrative on the development and operationalisation of socialist political thought and action. It is a narrative that contextualises established political commentary on socialism in Britain in the words of those who work towards a socialist society, founding our understanding in lived experience. This thesis develops and implements an analytical model based in generational theory in order to examine the development of political consciousness simultaneously in the short and long term; across the horizontal and vertical transmission of ideas and experiences within left-wing organisations and among activists. It argues that a generational approach allows a unique and vital perspective in understanding the social construction of ideology, analysis and purposeful action for social change. It provides a language in which we may better understand the complexity of the negotiated relationship between locational circumstances and canonical narratives; personal experience and ideological adherence. The thesis argues that this negotiated relationship is a dynamic two-way process of interaction, and that political consciousness must be understood in the locational appropriation of canonical history; the canon as a product of collective experience.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo