Tuesday 4 February 11:00-12:30
University of Sussex Campus : Global Studies Resource Centre, Arts C / Zoom Webinar
Speaker: Professor Paul Warmington
Part of the series: CIE Research Café
“What, to paraphrase WEB Dubois, does it mean to be a legitimate grievance? The current English century has seen a resurgence of Powellite ethno-nationalism, wherein politicians, policy-makers and news media have constructed an ‘authentic white working-class’ in ways that necessitate the phenomenological disappearance of Black and Brown working-class people. This paper examines the discursive positioning of people of colour, not only as outside of (working) class identity, but often as the cause of white working class loss, as a legitimate (racial) grievance. In the aftermath of the riots of summer 2024, the paper explores contemporary rearticulations of discourses of race and class, the transatlantic discourse of the ‘left behind’ and the ‘social death’ implicit in disqualification from class identity.”