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Seeking to better understand what it means to grow older in contemporary Britain from the perspective of older people themselves, this richly detailed ethnographic study engages in debates over selfhood and people’s relationships with time. Based on research conducted in an English former coal mining village, the book focuses on the everyday experiences of older people living there. It explores how the category of old age comes to be assigned and experienced in daily life through multiple registers of interaction. These include ‘memory work’ about people, places and webs of relations in a postindustrial setting that has undergone profound social transformation. Challenging both the notion of a homogenous relationship with time across generations and the idea of a universalised middle-aged self, the author argues that the complex interplay of social, cultural and physical attributes of ageing means that older people can come to occupy a different position in relation to time and to the self than younger people. This account provides fascinating insight into what is at stake for the ageing self in regards to how people come to know, experience and dwell in the world. It describes the ways in which these distinctive forms of temporality and narrativity also come to be used against older people, denigrated socially in some contexts as ‘less-than-fully adult’. This text will be of great interest to researchers and students in anthropology, sociology, human geography and social gerontology working on interests in selfhood, time, memory, the anthropology of Britain and the lived experience of social change.

The Cruelty Man represents the first comprehensive account of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in Ireland, from its foundations in 1889, to the passing of responsibilities to the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) in 1956. In both Britain and Ireland, the NSPCC was at the forefront of the child protection movement, yet the history of the Society in Ireland has not been fully addressed. This book aims to fill this vacuum. It provides a study of the Society, while also utilising it as a vehicle to examine the treatment of poverty-stricken children and families by the State. More broadly, it contains a comprehensive history of child welfare from the introduction of the Poor Law in 1838 to the publication of the Kennedy Report in 1970. It addresses issues surrounding institutionalisation, welfare, family violence, compulsory education, child abuse and the role of charity in the provision of welfare. Based on research of the available records of the NSPCC archive, and court records, the text also explores changing concepts of childhood. It will appeal to both an academic and general audience, as it uses case studies of families investigated by the Society and the State. It will be essential to students of Irish social history, gender studies, social work and social policy. More generally it will interest those observing recent reports into child abuse in State institutions and in particular the history of Ireland’s industrial school system. The foreword by Vincent Browne also demonstrates its contemporary relevance.

This is an ethnographic account of English football fans who travel home and away with their team, based upon sixteen years’ participant observation. The author identifies a distinct sub-culture of supporter – the ‘carnival fan’ – who dominated the travelling support of the three clubs observed - Manchester United, Blackpool and the England national team. This accessible account follows these groups home and abroad, describing their interpretations, motivations and behaviour and challenging a number of the myths about ‘hooliganism’ and crowd control. An Ethnography of English Football Fans identifies the primary motivation of these fan groups to be the creation of a carnival – a period of transgression from the norms of everyday life based upon congregating in groups, alcohol consumption, humour and tomfoolery, and expressions of identity. In achieving these aims, the fan groups were frequently brought into conflict with the football authorities, police and ‘hooligan’ groups and this account includes explanations of some of the most serious instances of crowd disorder involving English fans in the last two decades. The book also looks at issues such as attitudes to gender, sexuality and race, and the impact of technology upon football fandom.

This book examines the lived housing experiences of recently arrived migrants in Ireland viewed in the context of national and international trends The analysis focuses on the ‘housing pathways’ of migrants. Housing pathways refers to the varying housing routes individuals take over time, and building on the concept of ‘housing careers’, places emphasis on the attitudes and perceptions individuals experience in their consumption of housing. The approach is considered a derivative of social constructionism and is therefore concerned with the social constructs that impact on the lived experience of housing. Internationally, a disproportionate number of recently arrived migrants tend to be concentrated in segments of housing sectors, denoted by less expensive and poor accommodation and that migrant communities tend to be spatially clustered. However, due to a lack of research, there is no evidence to suggest migrant communities residing in Ireland’s housing system either follow or deviate from these patterns. Consequently, the extent to which Ireland’s housing system is adequately meeting the accommodation needs of migrants has not been fully assessed. This book will provide the evidence required in order to make such an assessment possible.

During the past fifteen years, many thousands of people have passed through the Irish asylum system, especially migrants from Africa. Public debates in Ireland, in common with other EU Member States, have been framed by ‘integration’ discourse. However, not enough is known about lived experiences of integration, especially among former asylum seekers and their families. This book builds on several years of in-depth ethnographic research to provide a striking portrait of the integration experiences of African migrants in Dundalk, Drogheda and Dublin. The book draws on contemporary anthropological theory to explore labour integration, civic and political participation, religion, education and youth identity. The stories of several key research participants are threaded through the book. The book draws out the rich voices of African migrants who struggle in their everyday lives to overcome racism and exclusion and, yet, are producing new cultural formations and generating reasons for societal hope. Set against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and the ever-present hand of neo-liberal policies, this book is about everyday struggles and new visions for the future.

Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 is the first exploration of Irish medical and health experiences during the First and Second World Wars, as well as during the Irish revolutionary period. It examines the physical, mental and emotional impact of conflict on Irish political and social life and medical, scientific and official interventions in Irish health matters. The volume asks: What made Irish medical and health experiences unique? Did the financial exigencies of war impact detrimentally on Irish health care provision? How were psychological and emotional responses to war managed in Ireland? Did Ireland witness unique disease trends? And how did Irish medical communities and volunteers partake in international war efforts? The authors suggest that twentieth-century warfare and political unrest profoundly shaped Irish experiences of medicine and health and that Irish political, social and economic contexts added unique contours to those experiences not evident in other countries. In pursuing these themes, Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 offers an original and focused intervention into a central, but so far unexplored, theme in Irish medical history.

During the mid-1980s, the object of the condom became associated with the prevention of HIV/AIDS. This book investigates the consequences of this shift in the object's meaning. Focusing on the US, British and Australian contexts, it addresses the impact of the discourse of safer sex on our lives and, in particular, the lives of adolescents. Addressing AIDS public health campaigns, sex education policies, sex research on adolescence and debates on the eroticisation of safer sex, the book looks at how the condom has affected our awareness of ourselves, of one another and of our futures. In its examination of the condom in the late twentieth century, it critically engages with a range of literatures, including those concerned with sexuality, adolescence, methods, gender and the body.

Performing Englishness looks in detail at the growth in popularity and profile of the English folk arts in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Based on original research within English folk culture, it is the only ethnographic study of its kind. By closely scrutinising various facets of this folk resurgence – discursive, musical and visual – the authors explore how it speaks to a broader explosion of interest in the subject of English national and cultural identity. How does contemporary English folk music and dance relate to ideas about England and Englishness? What kinds of English identities are expressed through the works of musicians like Seth Lakeman or Bellowhead? How does morris dancing contribute to ongoing political debates around multiculturalism, globalisation, and the devolution of the British nations? And how does the English folk scene reconcile a new-found commercial success with anti-capitalist roots? In their quest for answers to these and other questions, the authors combine the approaches of British cultural studies and ethnomusicology, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with central figures of the resurgence and close analysis of key musical and dance texts. Their presentation of the English case contributes to debates about English identity and calls for a rethinking of concepts such as revival, indigeneity and tradition.

The book analyses why religious and racial minorities in Britain and France are unable to integrate into the nation-state. By examining their religious and cultural integration as well as their postcolonial status, I make the argument that historical attitudes towards postcolonial minorities make it very hard for them to be integrated into national life even as they become legal citizens.

This is a unique study of working class writing and community publishing. It evaluates the largely unexamined history of the emergence and development of working class writing and publishing workshops since the 1970s. The nature of working class writing is assessed in relation to the work of young people, older people, adult literacy students as well as writing workshops. Key themes and tensions in working class writing are explored in relation to historical and literary frameworks. This is the first in-depth study of this body of writing. In addition, a number of crucial debates are examined, for example, over class and identity, critical pedagogy and learning, the relationships with audiences, the role of mainstream cultural institutions in comparison with alternatives. The contradictions and tensions in all these areas are surveyed in coming to a historical understanding of this topic.

The symbolic and material treatment of youth by Irish society in general, and the institutions of Church, State and civil society more specifically, reflect broad social and cultural shifts. In a historical context, it may seem that young people's autonomy and freedom to choose has increased significantly as the Irish welfare state developed, the Church's grip on society loosened and Ireland opened up to the world. However, it is important to remember that increasing choices available to young people in terms of biographical choices, lifestyles and consumption do not necessarily imply more freedom. Young people's ability to negotiate their lives in a market society depends on multiple factors, such as economic, social and cultural capital, which remain unequally distributed. Similarly, societal anxieties about young people in the form of moral panics about youth culture and behaviour remain as valid in public and policy discourses today as ever before, perpetuating deficit constructions of young people. The authors of this national study, funded by the Irish Research Council, explore key issues in contemporary youth policy, including: the legacy of youth movements, the increased role of the State, the emergence of new forms of youth work, the targeting of young people deemed to be ‘at risk’, and the growing partnership between voluntary youth organisations and statutory agencies in the co-production of a youth work service. These issues are contextualised within an analysis of youth culture and the emergence of new definitions of ‘youth’.