Class in Australia

Description

Two decades since it was claimed that class is dead, social, economic and cultural inequalities are rising. Though Australia is often described as a 'lucky country' with a strong economy, we are witness to intensifying inequality with entrenched poverty and the growth of precarious and insecure labour. The disconnect of the rusted-on Labor voter and the rise of far-right politics suggest there is an urgent need to examine the contemporary functions of class relations. Class analysis in Australia has always had a contested position. The prominence of scholarship from the UK and US has often meant class analysis in Australia has had little to say about its settler colonial history and the past and present dynamics of race and racism that are deeply embedded in social and labour relations. In the post-war turn away from Marx and subsequent embracing of Bourdieu, much sociological research on class has focused on explorations of consumption and culture. Longstanding feminist critiques of the absence of gendered labour in class analysis also pose challenges for understanding and researching class. At a time of deepening inequality, Class in Australia brings together a range of new and original research for a timely examination of class relations, labour exploitation, and the changing formations of work in contemporary Australian society.

Steven Threadgold is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Newcastle. His research focuses on youth and class, with particular interests in unequal and alternate work and career trajectories, underground and independent creative scenes, and cultural formations of taste. Steve is Co-Director of the Newcastle Youth Studies Network, an Associate Editor of Journal of Youth Studies, and on the editorial boards of The Sociological Review and Journal of Applied Youth Studies. His latest book is Bourdieu and Affect: Towards a Theory of Affective Affinities. Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles won the 2020 Raewyn Connell Prize for best first book in Australian sociology. Jessica Gerrard is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She researches the changing formations and lived experiences of social inequalities in relation to education, activism, work and unemployment. Gerrard works across the disciplines of sociology, history and policy studies with an interest in critical methodologies and theories. Her books include Radical Childhoods: Schooling and the Struggle for Social Change and Precarious Enterprise on the Margins: Work, Poverty and Homelessness in the City.

This book is a powerful and vibrant study of the complex realities of class in modern Australia. It brings to light the intersection of class with gender, race, and the ongoing dispossession of First Nations peoples, and dispels the myth that class division is not relevant to the contemporary age. -- Sally McManus Class is central to Australians' lives but it is rarely analysed or even talked about. In this book Threadgold and Gerrard have pulled together the foremost thinkers on class, intersectionality and prejudice in Australia. -- Hon Dr Meredith Burgmann AM From colonial inequality to Upper Middle Bogan, this captivating volume dives deep into how class has shaped our nation. Through studies of the unemployed, warehouse workers, unions and school students, this book presents the finest analysis of class that Australian sociology has to offer. Read it to get a richer understanding of poverty, a stronger sense of social status, and a nuanced analysis of how gender, race and sexuality intersect with class. -- Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP This is a must-read collection for anyone interested in the topic of class in Australia. This collection digs deeps and engages with relevant and timely discussions about class using both an historical and contemporary lens. For anyone who is teaching, studying, or writing about class as theory or method, this book will open up rich and productive conversations. Class is an enduring problematic, both as a descriptor, heuristic device or theoretical framework. This collection aptly responds to this problematic, engaging with class across multiple intersections including gender, race and space. It taps into class as symbolic and ephemeral whilst also highlighting the material, tangible divisions that it produces. -- Dr Emma Rowe Class in Australia is a timely provocation to social scientists to rethink class, offering a series of deep reflections on the complexities and opportunities of class-based analysis. An inspiring collection of authors brings new questions, conceptual frameworks and methodologies to class analysis. Acknowledging that the dynamics of settler colonialism are central, this collection is positioned to invigorate familiar approaches focusing on education, migration, and labour, gender, sexuality, and cultural representations. The new class analysis starts here. -- Johanna Wyn