Introduction: Beginning the Work of Class and Culture

This book is about class and contemporary British culture, so perhaps we should begin by explaining what we take social class to be, for, as David Harvey (2005:31) has observed, it is a shadowy and dubious concept at the best of times. Here we understand social class as being formed through material conditions and economic (in)securities and as being shaped by early disadvantage or natal privilege and the uneven distribution of life chances and opportunities which these conditions create. But we also choose to recognise class as an ongoing social process experienced across our lifetime trajectories. For example, throughout our lives as classed subjects many of us are buffeted by a variety of changing socio-economic circumstances, which might be precipitated by family breakdown, redundancy, financial windfalls, exceptional professional success, and so on. All of these are also experienced in the wider context of economic eddies of boom, affluence and bust which impact on how we understand our current and future social roles.