Steven Threadgold

Should I pitch my tent in the middle ground? On ‘middling tendency’, Beck and inequality in youth sociology

In 2009 Woodman has recently challenged youth sociologists concerned with inequality to evolve from what he describes as a middling orthodoxy that misrepresents the work of Ulrich Beck in an effort to emphasise the continuing relevance of class. In 2010 Roberts forcefully responds to Woodman, arguing that Becks own words and empirical evidence contradict his argument. Woodman responds to Roberts, reasserting his position and asks for the debate to move beyond mere ‘quote wars’. This paper engages with this debate, taking Woodmans challenge seriously while maintaining that Becks jettison of class is problematic, and that the concept of class itself is still vital. The paper concludes with suggestions as to what youth sociologists concerned with socio-economic inequality might want to focus upon in the future.

‘I reckon my life will be easy, but my kids will be buggered’: ambivalence in young people's positive perceptions of individual futures and their visions of environmental collapse

This article discusses young peoples attitudes towards the future in terms of two distinct risks: on the one hand, their perceptions of achieving their ambitions, on the other, their perceptions of the future of the world, particularly in terms of environmental issues. The data are discussed as a disjuncture between these issues where the positive perceptions of the likelihood of achieving ambitions are rarely linked to their pessimistic visions of societal collapse. This is discussed through the lens of social theories about risk, reflexivity, ambivalence and governmentality. It is argued that the ‘experts’ in young peoples lives – namely parents, teachers, politicians and media – discursively create a hierarchy of risk that legitimises individual choices about managing ones own life trajectory while delegitimising action towards large scale social issues. Despite considerable awareness of coming environmental problems and frustration over inaction, young people tend to prioritise the management of individual issues that works towards the maintenance of a governmentalised subjectivity. When faced with the ambivalences inherent in a risk society, the reflexive quest for order is governmentalised.

Stumbling towards collapse: coming to terms with the climate crisis

Leading sociologists have approached the climate crisis by emphasising a way forward and identifying hopeful directions. What sense is to be made of suggestions that we are instead on the brink of a ‘collapse’ in which the crisis is not resolved but leads to the end of existing civilisation? Partly based on three studies of contemporary opinion in the Hunter Valley in Australia, a coal industry centre, this discussion is also based on an examination of the public response to climate change world wide, the nature of the crisis as understood by science, the political response so far and the economic problems of replacing fossil fuels. What social theories might help explain what is happening? It is concluded that ‘collapse’ can be understood by conceiving capitalist society as a social machine, informed by a ‘social imaginary’.

Youth and political economy: towards a Bourdieusian approach

ABSTRACT Cotê has called for a focus on a political economy analysis, where young people should be thought of as ‘youth-as-class’. Cotê positions youth as having false consciousness, arguing that youth studies is too focussed on subjectivities and a potential apologist for neo-liberalism. While we acknowledge the central importance of economic considerations, this paper critically engages Cotê’s claims while developing an approach to political economy that recognises the importance of inequalities between young people. We engage with a number of Cotê’s claims arguing that his position underestimates the diversity of work in this area and the importance subjectivities to any analysis of political economy. We also identify a number of conceptual problems with ‘youth-as-class’ and the ‘false consciousness’ heuristic. We develop an alternative approach outlining a more integrative understanding of the relationship between the political and the economy highlighting the importance of subjectivity. We draw on ideas of political ecology; reflexivity and consciousness; and concepts from Bourdieu. Our approach recognises that young peoples lives can be shaped by economic forces and by classed symbolic and moral forces. Young people are not passive dupes, but are in a constant reflexive struggle to respond to circumstances not always of their own making.

Prophet of a new modernity: Ulrich Beck’s legacy for sociology

Ulrich Beck was one of the most influential sociologists of recent decades. Concepts he developed – including risk society, individualization, cosmopolitanization, subpolitics and the democratization of science – are among the most cited, used and contested in contemporary sociology. In the wake of Beck’s recent death, this review article revisits his key contributions and legacy. He proposed that a momentous shift to a new modernity has begun and challenged sociologists as to whether the concepts they use are up to the task of tracing this emerging dynamic. Provocatively, Beck asked whether concepts like the nation-state, family and class are functioning as ‘zombie categories’, continuing on in sociology but no longer relevant to social experience. We argue that Beck was not denying the significance of such social factors, but setting a challenge to the discipline to show how the key concepts of sociology can be reimagined in the face of social change.

Youth, Social Media, and Cyberbullying Among Australian Youth: “Sick Friends”

Cyberbullying is a relatively recent phenomenon that can have significant consequences for young people’s wellbeing due to the specific technological affordances of social media. To date, research into cyberbullying has been largely quantitative; thus, it often elides the complexity of the issue. Moreover, most studies have been “top down,” excluding young people’s views. Our qualitative research findings suggest that young people engage in cyberbullying to accrue social benefits over peers and to manage social pressures and anxiety, while cultural conventions in gender performance see girls engage differently in cyberbullying. We conclude that cyberbullying, like offline bullying, is a socially constructed behavior that provides both pleasure and pain.

Farmers as modern-day stewards and the rise of new rural citizenship in the battle over land use

ABSTRACT A decade ago, scholars such as Michael Woods suggested that mobilisation in response to development in rural spaces was the result of a redefinition of relations between individuals, communities and the State. This remains true with the rural representing a contested site characterised by debates concerning food and fibre, water and energy security. With the recent deployment of new energy technologies in areas traditionally used for agricultural production, increased confrontation and resistance over land use has forged unlikely alliances between farmers, environmentalists and concerned others, ultimately leading to the rise of a new form of rural citizenship. In the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) where resistance to burgeoning coal seam gas operations has become the customary response of many rural communities, environmentalists and concerned others are mobilising in support of farmers, who self-identify as modern-day stewards and are actively working to protect a resource hierarchy of water, land and soil against industries believed to be putting these at risk. Adopting a qualitative case-study approach, this paper examines how residents and supporters in the regional Shire of Narrabri in NSW have responded to what many see as competing land uses. We argue that values traditionally associated with stewardship and rurality are being revalorised by citizens to actively oppose the visions of the State, which seek to prioritise extractive development over other alternate futures. We contend that this rise in rural relations represents a significant shift in the notion of citizens as “inhabitants” and presents a new and enduring form of agency.

Thinking with and beyond Bourdieu in widening higher education participation

ABSTRACT This article argues that to better investigate the enduring relationship between social class background and inequalities in post-compulsory education necessitates a more comprehensive approach to thinking with Bourdieu, but also a need to move beyond his seminal, much used concepts. Through meta-analysis, we review how Bourdieusian theory has been used in widening participation research in mainly Anglophone contexts, and consider how including concepts from his wider ‘toolbox’ can aid this pursuit. We consider new theories and concepts that have emerged largely after Bourdieu and their appropriateness for research in Australian higher education. We explore how a ‘practice-based’ theory of widening participation might be developed, drawing on the work of Schatzki and Kemmis which permits researchers to usefully consider the internal goods of a practice and the role of institutions and the non-human. We also suggest that incorporating intersectionality, as both a social theory of knowledge and an approach to analysis, facilitates exploration of routine practices and struggles and reveals the complexities, provisionality and becomingness of social positioning, subjectivities and change. Such theoretical extensions to Bourdieu’s legacy enable more nuanced understandings of how complex and intersecting social inequalities in higher education are realised or challenged in countries beyond the global north.

Keep the hope alive: young Indonesian musicians’ views of the future

ABSTRACT Using ethnographic and interview data, this article explores hopes for the future of young Indonesian musicians. The young people are seen to consider their future trajectories in multiple, hierarchical music fields. The article also takes into account the ontological insecurity of jobs as a professional musician, arguing that there is continuous reproduction of a doxa, namely ‘survival of the fittest’ in Indonesia. Yet despite abundant risks to livelihoods, young Indonesian musicians expressed optimistic views about the future. The analysis of data below bridges the gap between the traditionally separate youth studies fields of youth transitions and youth cultures. Our interpretation critically contextualises the dialogue between these two fields based on the experiences of young Indonesian musicians as a part of the Global South.

Gender, Sexuality, and Risk in the Practice of Affective Labour for Young Women in Bar Work

This article explores the ways that gender, sexuality, pleasure, and risk are entangled in affective labour and the production of value in ‘front of house’ bar work. Through their work as bar staff at ‘hip’ inner-city Melbourne venues, the young women we discuss produce affects in the form of a ‘vibe’ of relaxation, fun, pleasure, and release. We address McRobbie’s call for the ‘actual working practices’ which comprise affective labour to be explored and highlight the ways gender relations including the heterosexual matrix of desire are mobilised in the production of value in young women’s bar work. We discuss the tensions at play in this context where women are required to generate both a positive and a pleasurable feeling in their interactions with others while negotiating the complex politics of heterosexual desire while at work, including managing and negotiating harassment from male customers. This management requires complex sensate and embodied practices that are both conscious and unconscious (described, for example, as an ‘instinct’), involving constantly ‘scanning’ and ‘reading the crowd’ and monitoring their own embodied and affective responses to particular men while they carry on other conversations or pour drinks. We argue it is critical to study the ‘actual working practices’ which comprise affective labour in order to expose the ways relations of inequality can be mobilised in the production of value in this context.