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Narratives of Difference in an Age of Austerity

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  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Irene Gedalof

    1. School of Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom

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  • Traces the production of narratives across the Conservative legislative and policy agenda
  • Presents an intersectional analysis focusing on policy framing of family, welfare, equality, localism, marriage, migration integration
  • Contends that these policy narratives expose a shift in the discursive ground upon which issues of social difference and inequality have been debated
  • Exposes the broader shifts that have transformed the terms in which difference and inequality are debated in contemporary politics

Part of the book series: Thinking Gender in Transnational Times (THINKGEN)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Narrative, Difference, Austerity

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 1-26

  3. Turning Around Equalities

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 27-52

  4. Doing the Right Thing: Welfare Reform Narratives and the Crafting of Consent

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 53-81

  5. Work Yourself Better: The Disabled Person as Benefit Scrounger

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 83-110

  6. Social Justice™(DWP) and the Trouble with Families

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 111-140

  7. Attachment and Disgust in Narratives of UK Family Migration Policy

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 141-168

  8. Places of Sameness : Integration Policy, Localism and the Big Society

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 169-202

  9. Postscript: November 2016

    • Irene Gedalof
    Pages 203-211

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 213-230
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Keywords

About this book

​This book traces the narrative strategies framing austerity policies through an illuminating analysis of policy documents and political discourses, exposing the political consequences for women, racialized minorities and disabled people. While many have critiqued the ways in which austerity has captured the contemporary political narrative, this is the first book to systematically examine how these narratives work to shift the terms within which policy debates about inequality and difference play out. Gedalof’s exceptional readings of these texts pay close attention to the formal qualities of these narratives: the chronologies they impose, their articulation of crisis and resolution, the points of view they construct and the affective registers they deploy. In this manner she argues persuasively that the differences of gender, race, ethnicity and disability have been stitched into the fabric of austerity as excesses that must be disavowed, as reproductive burdens that are too great for the austere state to bear. This innovative, intersectional analysis will appeal to students and scholars of social policy, gender studies, politics and public policy.





Reviews

“An urgent reminder of how policy seeks to make us 'feel' - and feel that there is no way out from inequality and injustice. The narrative of austerity may be changing, but the technique remains. Read this to understand how popular emotion can become a tool of the state, because if we see it we can change it.” (Gargi Bhattacharyya, author of Crisis, Austerity and Everyday Life, Professor of Sociology, University of East London, UK)

“Applying techniques of narrative analysis to policy documents and the legislative agenda of the Conservative-led Coalition government, this innovative text provides an intricate, penetrating and incisive investigation into the ways in which political discourse sets the terms for broader socio-political, economic and cultural debates about difference and (in)equality. Critical analysis at its best.” (Avtar Brah, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom

    Irene Gedalof

About the author

Irene Gedalof is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at London Metropolitan University and a member of the Feminist Review editorial collective. 

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