Narratives of Difference in an Age of Austerity

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   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

    PDF

​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.

• austerity policy
• equality policy
• neo-liberalism
• welfare reform
• the Big Society
• political grammar
• Social Justice
• social model of disability
• uk coalition government 2010
• Theresa May
• David Cameron
• Iain Duncan Smith
• migrant family
• family policy
• Integration Policy
• Localism
• policy framing
• British Politics
• discourse analysis

“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)

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

  Irene Gedalof

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

Policies and ethics